Lucy

“Most Englishmen have a rooted distrust of reasoning, and believe that what they call their instincts and intuitions—usually, in fact, prejudices based on custom or self-interest—are a safer guide to conduct. Even when they have learnt to consult reason in matters of business or politics, they generally warn her off the doorstep if she approaches the region of personal relationships.
Thus there are professional thinkers, men who are spending their lives in persuading Society to act reasonably in international or industrial matters, who, after admitting that the case for Family Allowances is "unanswerable", declare that they dislike it; it is too mechanical—and so turn their backs on the whole subject. Just so the prosperous motorist is annoyed at the suggestion that the picturesque creeper-covered cottages he passes in the country is going to be replaced with new houses equipped with three bedrooms, a bathroom and all modern conveniences. He admits that the picturesque cottage is probably cramped, dark and insanitary, but he prefers it. He has never spent a day in such a place, nor troubled to think what a lifetime spent in it must be like. But he prefers it, "and that's that.”
― Eleanor F Rathbone

“In one sense the House of Commons is the most unrepresentative of representative assemblies. It is an elaborate conspiracy to prevent the real clash of opinion which exists outside from finding an appropriate echo within its walls. It is a social shock absorber placed between privilege and the pressure of popular discontent. The new Member’s first experience of this is when he learns that passionate feelings must never find expression in forthright speech...The classic Parliamentary style of speech is understatement. It is a style unsuited to the representative of working people because it slurs and mutes the deep antagonisms which exist in society.”
― Aneurin Bevan, In Place of Fear

“I have never been in any rich man's house which would not have looked the better for having a bonfire made outside of it of nine-tenths of all that it held.”
― William Morris, Hopes and Fears for Art

“[The Liberals are] men possessed of property, but not of principles, whose consciences are just strong enough for them to dislike being called Conservatives, so long as they believe their property to be safe; but who will have to put up with being called reactionists about the time when their property seems to be in any danger. These politicians, who in fact are just hanging on till they see which way the cat is going to jump, are, of course, much the strongest party in our middle-class state, and since 1880 have had a good time indeed in dragging the conscientious Radicals who brought them into power though some of the dirtiest puddles in English history.”
― William Morris