Raymond Williams

There are no masses; there are only ways of seeing people as masses

— Raymond Williams

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

— Raymond Williams

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

— Raymond Williams

Once we begin to speak of men mixing their labour with the earth, we are in a whole world of new relations…

— Raymond Williams

It wasn't idealism that made me, from the beginning, want a more secure and rational society. It was an intellectual judgment, to…

— Raymond Williams

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

— Raymond Williams

A very large part of English middle-class education is devoted to the training of servants...In so far as it is, by definition,…

— Raymond Williams

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

— Raymond Williams

Every aspect of personal life is radically affected by the quality of general life, and yet the general life is seen at…

— Raymond Williams

If from poetry we expect a succession of signals for the release of miscellaneous private emotion we are likely to find Tears,…

— Raymond Williams

Country' and 'city' are very powerful words, and this is not surprising when we remember how much they seem to stand for…

— Raymond Williams

Most works of art are effectively treated as commodities and most artists, even when they justly claim quite other intentions, areeffectively treated…

— Raymond Williams

Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.

— Raymond Williams

It is not primarily ideas that have a history; it is societies. And then what often seem opposed ideas can in the…

— Raymond Williams

The human crisis is always a crisis of understanding: what we genuinely understand we can do.

— Raymond Williams

The gap between our feelings and our social observation is dangerously wide.

— Raymond Williams

On the country has gathered the idea of a natural way of life: of peace, innocence, and simple virtue. On the city…

— Raymond Williams

“[T]here are in fact no masses, but only ways of seeing people as masses.”

— Raymond Williams

“From the late eighteenth century onwards, it is no longer from the practice of community but from being a wanderer that the…

— Raymond Williams

The real dividing line between things we call work and the things we call leisure is that in leisure, however active we…

— Raymond Williams

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

— Raymond Williams

We all like to think of ourselves as a standard, and I can see that it is genuinely difficult for the English…

— Raymond Williams

What is often being argued, it seems to me, in the idea of nature is the idea of man; and this not…

— Raymond Williams