Stanley Knowles

Stanely Knowles
Ideas change the world, but they do it by assuming shape, they do it by taking concrete form.

Stanley Howard Knowles, PC, OC (June 18, 1908 – June 9, 1997) was a Canadian parliamentarian. Knowles represented the riding of Winnipeg North Centre from 1942 to 1958 on behalf of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and again from 1962 to 1984 representing the CCF's successor, the New Democratic Party (NDP).

Quotes

The New Party - (1961)

• Expensive firefighting equipment is rushed to the scene immediately on the sound of an alarm no matter what is on fire. Elaborate freeways in our metropolitan areas, costing many millions of dollars, are available to any motor vehicle. Microwave systems bring to ones television a program or view of an event taking place thousands of miles away. For the same few cents one can send a letter a short distance or across the continent.
  • Chapter 5, O Canada, p. 55
• Yet another means by which to distribute more equally the wealth our people create is by an all-out program in the building of homes. Where did we ever get the idea that it is all right for some Canadian children to grow up in slums and others in mansions? If we can find the money - in other words, the raw materials and the men to do the work - to build skyscrapers and luxurious bank buildings in our large cities, if we can afford to maintain an elaborate defence establishment, if we can cope with the social costs that flow from life on the "other side of the tracks," we can well afford the expenditure of public money in programs designed to eliminate every last slum dwelling there is in this country, in programs designed to redevelop our communities, both urban and rural, toward the day when all our people will live in good homes.
  • Chapter 5, O Canada, p. 55-56
• Ideas change the world, but they do it by assuming shape, they do it by taking concrete form.
  • Chapter 6, Structure, p. 60
• One of the facts of history is that battles do not stay won. Those that matter have to be waged again and again.
  • Chapter 7, Program, p. 80
• The fearsome fact of our time is that other elements than the government have assumed the role of directing our affairs. To a very large extent the way we live and the things we live for are determined by the interests of powerful and monopolistic corporations
  • Chapter 7, Program, p. 80 (See also: New World Order)
• The kinds of homes or communities people live in, the resources available for health, education, and security in old age - all these things are subject to the decisions of rulers we do not elect.
  • Chapter 7, Program, p. 80
• What shall it profit us to live in an affluent society if the things we produce and the ways in which we distribute them fail to contribute to the achievement of human dignity and social values?
  • Chapter 7, Program, p. 81
• Plan-less profit-seeking as practiced by the West cannot match the planned export policies of the East.
  • Chapter 7, Program, p. 82
• All told it is a new world. It calls for new ideas. In Canada it calls for a New Party.
  • Chapter 7, Program, p. 83

When a society spends more on advertising than it does on education, where is it headed?

• Education is still starved. It is the cornerstone of any civilized society and the sharpest sword in the defence of freedom, but it is still the step child of governments and corporations alike.
  • Chapter 7, Program, p. 84
• What shall it profit us, unless life in the midst of it all has meaning? When a society spends more on advertising than it does on education, where is it headed?
  • Chapter 8, The Forecast Is Good, p. 102
• Workers do not try to prevent employers from making contributions to political parties the workers do not support.
  • Chapter 9, Is Your Criticism Here?, p. 117