“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery..”

—  Winston S. Churchill

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Winston S. Churchill photo
Winston S. Churchill 601
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1874–1965

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“Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech (May 28, 1948) at the Scottish Unionist Conference, Perth, Scotland, in Never Give In! : The best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches (2003), Hyperion, p. 446 ISBN 1401300561
Post-war years (1945–1955)

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“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in the House of Commons (October 22, 1945) "Demobilisation" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1945/oct/22/demobilisation#column_1703
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Variant: The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

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“Political and social justice requires, not the disintegration of a country and destruction or humiliation of a class which shows initiative, intelligence and drive, but equality of opportunity for all, genuine freedom for self-fulfilment, in which all men irrespective of caste or creed may share.”

Syama Prasad Mookerjee (1901–1953) Indian politician

Speech delivered at Benaras Hindu University Convocation on 1st December 1940.

Danny Kruger photo

“Liberalism is the philosophy of the individual. Its ethic is liberty and its characteristic is autonomy — the freedom of the will from external constraint. It says "I shall…".
Socialism is the philosophy of the state. Its ethic is equality and its characteristic is coercion — the power, in the last resort, to exert force over individuals and groups. It says "you must…".
Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority”

Danny Kruger (1974) British politician and Conservative MP

the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says "we should…".
"Triangulation", p. 13
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“Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

Source: The Thomas Sowell Reader, New York: NY, Basic Books (2011) p. 144, Forbes magazine, "The survival of the left" (Sept. 8, 1997)

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“I have come to understand that the self, my self, is inherently sacred. By virtue of its own improbability, its own miracle, its own emergence”

Ursula Goodenough book The Sacred Depths of Nature

Source: The Sacred Depths of Nature (1998), p. 60
Context: I have come to understand that the self, my self, is inherently sacred. By virtue of its own improbability, its own miracle, its own emergence … And so I lift up my head, and I bear my own witness, with affection and tenderness and respect. And in so doing, I sanctify myself with my own grace.

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“As the philosophy, our national philosophy of the Vedanta, has summarised all misfortune, all misery from that one cause, ignorance, herein also we must understand that the difficulties that arise between us and the English people are mostly due to that ignorance; we do not know them, they do not know us.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Spoken on his return to India from England as recorded in From Colombo to Almora (1904), Calcutta, p. 221
Context: No one ever landed on English soil with more hatred in his heart for a race than I did for the English, and, on this platform, are present English friends who can bear witness to the fact, but the more I lived among them, saw how the machine is working, the English national life, mixed with them, found where the heart-beat of the nation was, the more I loved them. There is none among you here present, my brothers, who loves the English people more than I do. You have to see what is going on there, and you have to mix with them. As the philosophy, our national philosophy of the Vedanta, has summarised all misfortune, all misery from that one cause, ignorance, herein also we must understand that the difficulties that arise between us and the English people are mostly due to that ignorance; we do not know them, they do not know us.

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“Envy is ignorance,
Imitation is Suicide.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Variant: Imitation is suicide.
Source: Self-Reliance

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“Christianity has found its triumphs and shown its fruits in every nation and tribe upon the globe; and its results have been in every case the same. Virtue, social order, prosperity, blessedness, the elevation and improvement, in all respects, of the human life, are the uniform and exclusive inheritance of those who receive the gospel.”

Julius Hawley Seelye (1824–1895) American politician

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 136.

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