R. H. Tawney

It is not till it is discovered that high individual incomes will not purchase the mass of mankind immunity from cholera, typhus,…

— R. H. Tawney

Private property is a necessary institution, at least in a fallen world; men work more and dispute less when goods are private…

— R. H. Tawney

Clever men are impressed in their differences from their fellows. Wise men are conscious of their resemblance to them.

— R. H. Tawney

Too often, contemning the external order as unspiritual, [the Puritan] has made it, and ultimately himself, less spiritual by reason of his…

— R. H. Tawney

A reasonable estimate of economic organisation must allow for the fact that, unless industry is to be paralysed by recurrent revolts on…

— R. H. Tawney

Virtues are often conquered by vices, but their rout is most complete when it is inflicted by other virtues, more militant, more…

— R. H. Tawney

The characteristic virtue of Englishmen is power of sustained practical activity and their characteristic vice a reluctance to test the quality of…

— R. H. Tawney

An erring colleague is not an Amalkite to be smitten hip and thigh.

— R. H. Tawney

It is probable that democracy owes more to nonconformity than to any other single movement.

— R. H. Tawney

If a man has important work, and enough leisure and income to enable him to do it properly, he is in possession…

— R. H. Tawney

By a kind of happy pre-established harmony, such as a later age discovered between the needs of society and the self-interest of…

— R. H. Tawney

“Granted, I should love my neighbor as myself, the questions which, under modern conditions of large-scale organization, remain for solution are, ''Who…

— 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…

— R. H. Tawney

When men have gone so far as to talk as though their idols have come to life, it is time that someone…

— R. H. Tawney

One of the main truths of all education is that if the young are not always right, the old are always wrong.

— R. H. Tawney

Bankruptcies of governments have, on the whole, done less harm to mankind than their ability to raise loans.

— R. H. Tawney

Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow.

— R. H. Tawney

The real economic cleavage is not... between employers and employed, but between all who do constructive work, from scientist to laborer, on…

— R. H. Tawney

Convinced that character is all and circumstances nothing, [the Puritan] sees in the poverty of those who fall by the way, not…

— R. H. Tawney

The certainties of one age are the problems of the next.

— R. H. Tawney

As long as men are men, a poor society cannot be too poor to find a right order of life, nor a…

— R. H. Tawney

A society which reverences the attainment of riches as the supreme felicity will naturally be disposed to regard the poor as damned…

— R. H. Tawney