Harold Laski Quotes

Sir, the fact that the book is in a public library brings no comfort.Books are the one element in which I am personally and nakedly acquisitive. If it weren't for the law I would steal them. If it weren't for my purse I would buy them.

It is impossible to make peace with the Roman Catholic Church. It is one of the permanent enemies of all that is decent in human spirit.

...civilization means, above all, an unwillingness to inflict unnecessary pain... those of us who heedlessly accept the commands of authority cannot yet claim to be civilized men.

Professor Harold Laski declared that the attainment of power by the British Labour Party in the normal parliamentary fashion must result in a radical transformation of parliamentary government. A socialist administration needs ‘guarantees’ that its work of transformation would not be ‘disrupted’ by repeal in event of its defeat at the polls. Therefore the suspension of the Constitution is ‘inevitable’.

Every theory of social action is ultimately a philosophy of history. It attempts, as best it may, to read in the experience of mankind the lessons which would justify its own special urgency.

Later in life, Holmes wrote to his friend Harold Laski, “Every mitigation

A learned scholar like professor Harold Laski spent years denouncing military equipment producers in Britain, who were all that stood between him and dehumanization and extermination in a Nazi concentration camp.

The Labor government of 1945, which was put in power by popular vote and did what the people wanted, was nearer the Marxist idea than any of the governments thrown up by revolution, French, Russian or other.

Books are the one element in which I am personally and nakedly acquisitive