To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair inevitable.

It wasn't idealism that made me, from the beginning, want a more secure and rational society. It was an intellectual judgment, to which I still hold. When I was young its name was socialism. We can be deflected by names. But the need was absolute, and is still absolute.

What breaks capitalism, all that will ever break capitalism, is capitalists. The faster they run the more strain on their heart.

A contrast between country and city, as fundamental ways of life, reaches back into classical times.

The idea of nature contains, though often unnoticed, an extraordinary amount of human history.

It is not primarily ideas that have a history; it is societies. And then what often seem opposed ideas can in the end be seen as parts of a single social process.

We all like to think of ourselves as a standard, and I can see that it is genuinely difficult for the English middle class to suppose that the working class is not desperately anxious to become just like itself. I am afraid this must be unlearned.