Beatrice Webb Quotations

we have not been impressed with any attribute of the Senate other than its appearance and manners. We have heard the best speakers: they all fire off speeches which deal with the entire subject in general terms and which do not attempt to debate, to answer opponents' arguments or offer new points for discussion. And the speeches are constantly degenerating into empty rhetoric; they abound in quotations from well-known authors or from their own former speeches.

If a weakly mortal is to do anything in the world besides eat the bread thereof, there must be a determined subordination of the whole nature to the one aim no trifling with time, which is passing, with strength which is only too limited.

The middle man governs, however extreme may seem to be the men who sit on the Front Bench, in their reactionary or revolutionary opinions.

Renunciation - that is the great fact we all, individuals and classes, have to learn. In trying to avoid it we bring misery to ourselves and others.

Beneath the surface of our daily life, in the personal history of many of us, there runs a continuous controversy between an Ego that affirms and an Ego that denies.

At present I feel like a caged animal, bound up by the luxury, comfort and respectability of my position. I can't get the training that I want without neglecting my duty.

the possession of wealth, and especially the inheritance of wealth, seems almost invariably to sterilize genius.

It would be curious to discover who it is to whom one writes in a diary. Possibly to some mysterious personification of one's own identity.

Harris had the egotistical dogmatism of the self-made man who had painfully educated himself without contact with superior brains.

All along the line, physically, mentally, morally, alcohol is a weakening and deadening force ...