Quote

I am not so repelled by Communism: an element of Communism in politics is necessary and inevitable. In any involved society there must be a feeling that something must be done about poverty - which is the basis of communism.

Rebecca West

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Rebecca West
Age: 90 †
Born: 1892
Born: December 21
Died: 1983
Died: March 15
Author
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Suffragette
Writer
London
England
Cicely Isabel Fairfield
Dame Cicely Isabel Fairfield
Involved
Communism
Feeling
Element
Politics
Inevitable
Society
Basis
Feelings
Bases
Done
Elements
Must
Necessary
Something
Poverty
Repelled

More quotes by Rebecca West

Image
I find to my astonishment that an unhappy marriage goes on being unhappy when it is over.
Rebecca West
Image
Man is a hating rather than a loving animal.
Rebecca West
Image
Sex, which ought to be an incident of life, is the obsession of the well-fed world.
Rebecca West
Image
The trouble about man is twofold. He cannot learn truths which are too complicated he forgets truths which are too simple.
Rebecca West
Image
The redemptive power of divine grace no longer seemed credible, nor very respectable in the arbitrary performance that was claimed for it.
Rebecca West
Image
Hatred of domestic work is a natural and admirable result of civilization. ... The first thing a woman does when she gets a little money into her hands is to hire some other poor wretch to do her housework.
Rebecca West
Image
But there are other things than dissipation that thicken the features. Tears, for example.
Rebecca West
Image
Marriage had certain commercial advantages. By it the man secures the exclusive right to the woman's body and by it, the woman binds the man to support her during the rest of her life.... A more disgraceful bargain was never struck.
Rebecca West
Image
... there has never been a period in history when there have been necessary killings which has not been instantly followed by a period when there have been unnecessary killings.
Rebecca West
Image
Mr. Arnold Bennett feels he has ranked himself for ever as a dry wine by what he mixed with himself of Maupassant nevertheless he has put on the market some grocer's Sauterne in the form of several novels that are highly sentimental so far as their fundamental balance of values is concerned.
Rebecca West
Image
I have never been able to write with anything more than the left hand of my mind the right hand has always been engaged in something to do with personal relationships. I don't complain, because I think my left hand's power, as much as it has, is due to its knowledge of what my right hand is doing.
Rebecca West
Image
A copy of the universe is not what is required of art one of the damned things is ample.
Rebecca West
Image
If the whole human race lay in one grave, the epitaph on its headstone might well be: 'It seemed like a good idea at the time.'
Rebecca West
Image
There is no logical reason why the camel of great art should pass through the needle of mob intelligence.
Rebecca West
Image
Music is part of human life and partakes of the human tragedy. There is much more music in the world than is allowed to change into heard sounds and prove its point.
Rebecca West
Image
Art is not a luxury, but a necessity.
Rebecca West
Image
I see the main problem of my life, and indeed anybody's life, as the balancing of competitive freedoms ... a sense of mutual obligations that have to be honored, and a legal system which can be trusted to step in when that sense fails.
Rebecca West
Image
If it be ungentlemanly to kiss and tell, it is still further from gentlemanliness to pray and tell.
Rebecca West
Image
The unsuccessful bully can always become the father of a family.
Rebecca West
Image
domestic work is the most elementary form of labor. It is suitable for those with the intelligence of rabbits. All it requires is cleanlines, tidiness and quickness - not moral or intellectual qualities at all, but merely the outward and visible signs of health.
Rebecca West