Beatrice Webb Quotes

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

  Beatrice Webb

  Genius, Inheritance, Wealth

  18 Copy quote

• Nature still obstinately refuses to co-operate by making the rich people innately superior to the poor people.

  Beatrice Webb

  People, Wealth, Rich

  Sidney Webb, Beatrice Potter Webb (1923). “The Decay of Capitalist Civilisation”

  23 Copy quote

• Religion is love; in no case is it logic.

  Beatrice Webb

  Love, Women, Religion

  My Apprenticeship ch. 2 (1926)

  48 Copy quote

• . . . if I had been a man, self-respect, family pressure and the public opinion of my class would have pushed me into a money-making profession; as a mere woman I could carve out a career of disinterested research.

  Beatrice Webb

  Men, Class, Careers

  Beatrice Webb, Beatrice Potter Webb (1979). “My Apprenticeship”, p.355, Cambridge University Press

  25 Copy quote

• Work is the best of narcotics, providing the patient be strong enough to take it. I dread idleness as if it were Hell.

  Beatrice Webb

  Strong, Fear, Patient

  16 Copy quote

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

  Beatrice Webb

  Men, Benches, May

  Beatrice Webb (1956). “Diaries, 1924-1932”

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Beatrice Webb

  Running, Ego, Personal History

  Beatrice Webb, Beatrice Potter Webb (1979). “My Apprenticeship”, p.43, Cambridge University Press

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• If I ever felt inclined to be timid as I was going into a room hill of people, I would say to myself, "You're the cleverest member of one of the cleverest families in the cleverest class of the cleverest nation in the world-why should you be frightened?

  Beatrice Webb

  Fear, Class, People

  In Bertrand Russell 'Autobiography' (1967) vol. 1, ch. 4

  15 Copy quote

• Are all Cabinets congeries of little autocrats with a super-autocrat presiding over them?

  Beatrice Webb

  Government, Littles, Cabinets

  Beatrice Webb (1956). “Diaries, 1924-1932”

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Beatrice Webb

  Class, Trying, Facts

  Beatrice Webb, Jeanne MacKenzie (1982). “The Diary of Beatrice Webb: Glitter Around and Darkness Within, 1873-1892”, Belknap Press

  12 Copy quote

• 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.

  Beatrice Webb

  Animal, Luxury, Training

  Beatrice Webb, Jeanne MacKenzie (1982). “The Diary of Beatrice Webb: Glitter Around and Darkness Within, 1873-1892”, Belknap Press

  11 Copy quote

• The interruptions of the telephone seem to us to waste half the life of the ordinary American engaged in public or private business; he has seldom half an hour consecutively at his own disposal - a telephone is a veritable time scatterer.

  Beatrice Webb

  Ordinary, Half, Waste

  13 Copy quote

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

  Beatrice Webb

  Drinking, Alcohol, Lines

  1917 Health of Working Girls, ch.10.

  12 Copy quote

• 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.

  Beatrice Webb

  Writing, Identity, Would Be

  Beatrice Webb, Beatrice Potter Webb (1979). “My Apprenticeship”, p.280, Cambridge University Press

  14 Copy quote

• That part of the Englishman's nature which has found gratification in religion is now drifting into political life.

  Beatrice Webb

  Political, Found, Drifting

  Beatrice Webb, Beatrice Potter Webb (1979). “My Apprenticeship”, p.163, Cambridge University Press

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• 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.

  Beatrice Webb

  Nature, Demise, World

  Beatrice Webb, Jeanne MacKenzie (1982). “The Diary of Beatrice Webb: Glitter Around and Darkness Within, 1873-1892”, Belknap Press

  12 Copy quote

• 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.

  Beatrice Webb

  Fire, Answers, Speech

  Beatrice Potter Webb (1963). “American diary, 1898”

  9 Copy quote

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

  Beatrice Webb

  Education, Men, Self

  Beatrice Potter Webb (1963). “American diary, 1898”

  7 Copy quote

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