A society which reverences the attainment of riches as the supreme felicity will naturally be disposed to regard the poor as damned ... if only to justify itself for making their life a hell.
R. H. TawneyWhen men have gone so far as to talk as though their idols have come to life, it is time that someone broke them.
R. H. TawneyAs long as men are men, a poor society cannot be too poor to find a right order of life, nor a rich society too rich to have need to seek it.
R. H. Tawney...and was disposed too often to idealize as a virtue that habit of mean subservience to wealth and social position which, after more than half a century of political democracy, is still the characteristic and odious vice of the Englishman.
R. H. TawneyBankruptcies of governments have, on the whole, done less harm to mankind than their ability to raise loans.
R. H. TawneyThe real economic cleavage is not... between employers and employed, but between all who do constructive work, from scientist to laborer, on the one hand, and all whose main interest is the preservation of existing proprietary rights upon the other, irrespective of whether they contribute to constructive work or not.
R. H. Tawney