13 August
'A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own.' H G Wells
Science fiction writer, historian, vegetarian, anti-vivisectionist and socialist, H G Wells died today in 1946. Wells stood as a socialist candidate for London University and was once a member of the Fabian Society but left after a failed attempt to take it over, using his experience as the basis of his novel The New Machiavelli (1911).
‘That Anarchist world, I admit, is our dream; we do believe – well, I, at any rate, believe this present world, this planet, will some day bear a race beyond our most exalted and temerarious dreams, a race begotten of our wills and the substance of our bodies, a race, so I have said it, ‘who will stand upon the earth as one stands upon a footstool, and laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars,’ but the way to that is through education and discipline and law. Socialism is the preparation for that higher Anarchism … Socialism is the schoolroom of true and noble Anarchism, wherein by training and restraint we shall make free men.
‘_ H G Wells, New Worlds for Old (1908)
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