Socialism- christiansquoting.org.uk

If the world were so organised that everything has to be fair, no living creature could survive for a day. The birds would be forbidden to eat worms, and everyone's self-interest would have to be served.

We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one!

We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. --Frederic Bastiat, 1850

What then, is the common denominator to which all forms of socialism are reducible, and what is the bond that unites them against natural society, or society as planned by Providence? There is none except this: They do not want natural society. What they want is an artificial society, which has come forth full-grown from the brain of its inventor... They quarrel over who will mould the human clay, but they agree that there is human clay to mould. Mankind is not in their eyes a living and harmonious being endowed by God Himself with the power to progress and to survive, but an inert mass that has been waiting for them to give it feeling and life; human nature is not a subject to be studied, but matter on which to perform experiments. - Frederic Bastiat

...the myth of socialism is far stronger than the reality of capitalism. That is because capitalism is not really an ism at all. It is what people do if you leave them alone. -Arnold Beichmen

The difference between libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the existence of a socialist community, but socialists can't tolerate a libertarian community. - David D. Boaz (1997)

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves. -John William Henry Boetcker

Once freedom is equated with a certain material standard of living, confiscation becomes the path to liberation. - James Bovard

The socialist state requires greater and greater degrees of force to make it function. If resources and wealth are allocated on the basis of need rather than production, people will compete to be more needy rather than more productive. - Linda Bowles

Thou shalt not covet" means that it is sinful even to contemplate the seizure of another man's goods -- which is something which Socialists, whether Christian or otherwise, have never managed to explain away. - John Chamberlain

[No society can survive the socialist] fallacy that there is an absolutely unlimited number of inspired officials and an absolutely unlimited amount of money to pay them.--G K Chesterton

It is not alone that property, in all its forms, is struck at, but that liberty, in all its forms, is challenged by the fundamental conceptions of Socialism.
Winston Churchill

I do not wonder that British youth is in revolt against the morbid doctrine that nothing matters but the equal sharing of miseries; that what used to be called the submerged tenth can only be rescued by bringing the other nine-tenths down to their level; against the folly that it is better that everyone should have half rations rather than that any by their exertions, or ability, should earn a second helping.--Winston Churchill

All men are created equal' says the American Declaration of Independence. 'All men shall be kept equal' say the Socialists.--Winston Churchill

...he drove a sharp needle into Labour policy one day when he met [Clement Atlee] in the men's room. Atlee, arriving first, had stepped up to the urinal trough when Churchill strode in on the same mission, glanced at him, and stood at the trough as far away from him as possible. Atlee said, "Feeling standoffish today, are we, Winston?" Churchill said: "That's right. Every time you see something big, you want to nationalize it." -- William Manchester, The Last Lion (1988) "Dreams of Glory"

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings, the inherent vice of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.~Winston Churchill 1874-1965 (attrib.)

We are living in a sick society filled with people who would not directly steal from their neighbor but who are willing to demand that the government do it for them.--William L. Comer

When you subsidise poverty and failure, you get more of both. James Dale Davidson

Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation, most of those features of totalitarian regimes which horrify us follow of necessity.From the collectivist standpoint intolerance and brutal suppression of dissent, the complete disregard of the life and happiness of the individual, are essential and unavoidable consequences of this basic premise. --F. A. Hayek _The Road to Serfdom_ Chapter 10

All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly which can -- and must -- be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a "perfect society" on any foundation other than "Women and children first!" is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly -- and no doubt will keep trying.--Robert A. Heinlein, _Time Enough For Love_

I was guilty of judging capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations; capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature. -- Sidney Hook (Webb)

It is significant that the socialist mentality is usually also an atheistic mentality, where atheism is understood not so much as the disbelief in God as the hatred of God˜an attitude as precarious logically as it has been destructive in practice. There is an important sense in which religion as traditionally understood reconciles humanity to imperfection and to failure. Since the socialist sets out to abolish failure, traditional religion is worse than _de trop_: it is an impediment to perfection. -- Roger Kimball, "The Death of Socialism", _The New Criterion_, April 2002, http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/20/apr02/social.htm

Who is secure in all his basic needs? Who has work, spiritual care, medical care, housing, food, occasional entertainment, free clothing, free burial, free everything? The answer might be nuns and monks, but the standard reply is 'prisoners'; i.e., citizens of a provider state. -- Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.--G. Gordon Liddy

He (Aneurin Bevan) enjoys prophesying the imminent fall of the capitalist system, and is prepared to play a part, any part, in its burial, except that of mute. -- Harold Macmillan, speech in Commons, 1934

Socialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion. - Richard John Neuhaus

Socialism: nothing more than the theory that the slave is always more virtuous than his master.--H. L. Mencken Socialism is simply Communism for people without the testosterone to man the barricades.-- Gary North

As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for Socialism is its adherents.-- George Orwell. The Road to Wigan Pier (1937)

Whether considered as a doctrine, or as an historical fact, or as a movement, socialism, if it really remains socialism, cannot be brought into harmony with the dogmas of the Catholic church.
Pope Pius XI (Achille Ratti) , From the encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno (1931)

If Socialism, like all errors, contains some truth (which, moreover, the Supreme Pontiffs have never denied), it is based nevertheless on a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true Christianity. Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.-- Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno (On Reconstruction of the Social Order), Encyclical promulgated on 15 May 1931

'Helping industry' is the elephant pit of socialism, a deep hole with sharp spikes at the bottom, covered over with twigs and fresh grass. Enoch Powell September 1969

The overwhelming majority of today's intellectuals, it must be kept in mind, believe virtually every point of the indictment of capitalism... Thus, from their perspective, socialism should have succeeded and capitalism have failed. They had to expect that Soviet Russia, with its alleged rational economic planning and concentration on the building up of heavy industry, should have achieved the kind of economic eminence that Japan has achieved under capitalism, and have done so long ago. At the same time, they had to expect that the United States and Western Europe should have fallen into greater and greater chaos and poverty.
Yet, despite everything they believe, and think they understand, socialism has failed, while capitalism has succeeded. Being unwilling to admit that they have been wrong in their beliefs--thoroughly, devastatingly wrong--they choose to interpret the failure of socialism and success of capitalism as proof of the impotence of the mind to grasp reality, and now turn en masse to supporting the ecology movement and its assault on science and technology. In this way, ironically, the failure of socialism and success of capitalism have played an important role in accelerating the growth of irrationalism.
George Reisman, _Capitalism, A Treatise on Economics_, 1996

Then there was communism's weak-tea sister, socialism. Socialists maintained that we shouldn't take all the money away from all the people since all the people don't have money. We should take all the money away from only the people who make money. Then, when we run out of that, we could take more money from the people who...hey, wait! Where'd you people go? What do you mean you're "tax exiles in Monaco?"-- P. J. O'Rourke, _The CEO of the Sofa_, 2001

There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as "caring" and "sensitive" because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he'll do good with his own money -- if a gun is held to his head.
P.J. O'Rourke

The Tenth Commandment sends a message to socialists, to egalitarians, to people obsessed with fairness, to American presidential candidates in the year 2000 &emdash; to everyone who believes that wealth should be redistributed. And the message is clear and concise: Go to hell. -- P. J. O'Rourke, Eat the Rich

The Tenth Commandment sends a message to socialists, to collectivists, to people who believe that wealth is best obtained by redistribution, and that message is clear and concise . . . Egalitarianism is sinful; it's also cowardly. -- P.J. O'Rourke

Great Socialist statesmen aren't made, they're stillborn. --Saki

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it. Thomas Sowell

The grand delusion of contemporary liberals is that they have both the right and the ability to move their fellow creatures around like blocks of wood--and that the end results will be no different than if people had voluntarily chosen the same actions. --Thomas Sowell

It is less important to redistribute wealth than it is to redistribute opportunity. Arthur H. VandenbergSocialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it. Thomas Sowell

The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive. -- Thomas Sowell

The strongest argument for socialism is that it sounds good. The strongest argument against socialism is that it doesn't work. But those who live by words will always have a soft spot in their hearts for socialism because it sounds so good.-- Thomas Sowell

The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take the people's money quietly and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly. - Thomas Sowell 5/11/98

The proverb warns that "You should not bite the hand that feeds you." But maybe you should if it prevents you from feeding yourself. -- Thomas Szasz

We are not without accomplishment. We have managed to distribute poverty equally. -Nguyen Co Thach, Vietnamese foreign minister

Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. -- Alexis de Tocqueville

It is less important to redistribute wealth than it is to redistribute opportunity. Arthur H. Vandenberg