R. H. Tawney - The Acquisitive Society (1920)

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The characteristic virtue of Englishmen is power of sustained practical activity and their characteristic vice a reluctance to test the quality of that activity by reference to principles.

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 of as much happiness as is good for any of the children of Adam.

R. H. Tawney

Industrialized communities neglect the very objects for which it is worth while to acquire riches in their feverish preoccupation with the means by which riches can be acquired.

R. H. Tawney

Militarism…is fetish worship. It is the prostration of men's souls and the laceration of their bodies to appease an idol.

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 broke them.

R. H. Tawney