David Willetts Quotes

Get people to think about the benefits of government rather than taxes.

Earlier pluralist societies destroyed themselves because no one took care of the common good. They abounded in communities but could not sustain community, let alone create it.

I feel my heart break to see a nation ripped apart by it's own greatest strength - it's diversity.

Terror will crash down on us if we fail to understand that a pluralistic society requires the personal and daily commitment of every citizen.

I believe in taxation and health care that is outside the usual libertarian mandate, because I don't want people to have to suffer. It's as simple as that.

People think of taxes as money just being robbed from you. They don't consider the benefits of paying taxes. The benefits that they get and also the benefit of just being a part of a large group of people: a town, or a city, or a country, or a society that allegedly should stand together and all try to help each other.

The great American tradition is one of pluralism, not exclusive secularism. The strength of our country is reflected in the contributions that we all make to the common good.

Though the people support the government, the government should not support the people.

All the lessons of psychiatry, psychology, social work, indeed culture, have taught us over the last hundred years that it is the acceptance of differences, not the search for similarities which enables people to relate to each other in their personal or family lives.

We live in a prosperous country. And our prosperity is not only a blessing—it’s also an obligation.

Our first challenge in America today is simply to open our eyes to these changes, to discover America anew, and to explore the many ways in which the new immigration has changed the religious landscape of our cities and towns, our neighborhoods and schools.

My years as Governor General taught me many things. Perhaps the most important of them all was how critical our multiculturalism is to the well being of our nation. One sometimes hears suggestions that multiculturalism is divisive. I respectfully disagree. For me, multiculturalism means inclusiveness not division. It’s enabled us to blend the many into a pretty harmonious whole without bringing to this new land old hatreds, old prejudices and old conflicts. It is our multiculturalism in that sense which inspires and sustains our modern Australia. It is not only a moral imperative. In the context of our history and our identity, it is also a pragmatic necessity.

Those who stay in America should be open to society without melting.

Our national well-being is in inverse proportion to the sharpness and extent of our theoretical differences.

We’ve taken care not to penalize the wealthy but we have to redistribute some income …It is through reform that we can obtain fairness in the modern world…A reformed welfare state is the only way to obtain social justice.

We are a multicultural society in a continuous state of abrasion.

We can't talk about community values without being prepared to invest in those very same communities.

A constitution can permit the co-existence of several cultures and ethnic groups with a single state

The object of Socialism is not to render the individual capable of living on his personal resources. That is the theory of radical individualism. Its object is to create in him a greater and greater sense of his dependence upon the state, and, at the same time, to inculcate in him the conviction that he is a part of it and that he has a duty and responsibility toward the state; and that only in so far as he fulfills this duty can he benefit by the advantages of a complete personal and social life.

Democracy really depends not only on not just having a middle class but having wealth distributed relatively evenly across the society so that people buy into the legitimacy of the system

If you make people think that the wealth of the imperial house is the wealth of the nation, then no matter how large the income is, no one will ever complain.

It cannot be said that we dislike paying taxes for the welfare of those less well off than we are, so we develop a draping cover of economic and social theory.

Our showy celebration of, and absolute insistence upon, individual autonomy and unconstrained diversity pushes those by nature least equipped to live comfortably in a liberal democracy not to the limits of their tolerance, but to their intolerant extremes.

I would not want it to be thought that any system is the Kingdom of God on Earth. Capitalism isn’t. Democracy isn’t. The two combined are not. The best that can be said for them (and it is quite enough) is that, in combination, capitalism, democracy, and pluralism are more protective of the rights, opportunities, and conscience of ordinary citizens (all citizens) than any known alternative.

When they [most people] get a [government] benefit, they assume that God gave them it to them, But most people don’t want to pay for someone else’s undeserved benefits.