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David Lloyd George

383 quotes

“We are not taking full advantage of the assets at our command. Capital and labour are alike strangled by vested prejudices and traditions. Both are capable of producing infinitely more wealth for the benefit of the community than they are now creating. It is of no avail to spend time on distribution if production lags behind the common need. The best means of achieving production seems to be the most urgent task of our industrial and political leaders at this hour.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 'The Statesman's Task', The Nation and Athenæum (12 April 1924), quoted in John Campbell, 'The Renewal of Liberalism: Liberalism without Liberals', in Gillian Peele and Chris Cook (eds.), The Politics of Reappraisal, 19…
“The question was whether the Liberal Party was going to be merely a political party which is "the Keeper of the Doctrines." Its sole business would be to see that no man should stray. It would become purely a political sect, strictly, sternly, severely, painfully orthodox, and painfully select. If that was to be its rôle it would dwindle from generation to generation and decade to decade, until it would only have representation amongst the more tenacious races, to one of which he belonged.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Oxford Town Hall (6 August 1924), quoted in The Times (7 August 1924), p. 14
“If Toryism stands alone, fighting the extremists of the Socialist Party, it will not be long before the existing order is overthrown.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Queen's Hall, Langham Place, opening the Liberal Party's election campaign (14 October 1924), quoted in The Times (15 October 1924), p. 10
“Before they [Labour] came in unemployment was gradually improving year by year. Since they have been in it has gone up. Before they came in the cost of living was going down. It has gone up. Since they came in the number of houses that had been built for the workmen had gone down and their cost gone up. Before they came in the export trade of this country was gradually but steadily improving. Have you seen the last returns? They are going down. If this is what Mr. Ramsay MacDonald means by a Labour success, Heaven save this country any more Socialist triumphs.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Queen's Hall, Langham Place (14 October 1924), quoted in The Times (15 October 1924), p. 10
“The time has come for Liberalism to resume the leadership of progress—to lead away the masses from the chimeras of Karl Marx and the nightmares of Lenin, and to carry on the great task to which Gladstone and Bright devoted their noble lives.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Queen's Hall, Langham Place (14 October 1924), quoted in The Times (15 October 1924), p. 10
“[The Labour government] flung away the opportunity. They flung away a Heaven-given opening. What for? Not in order to emancipate the land, not in order to find work for the unemployed, not in order to build homes for the houseless, but in order to commit the taxation of this country to a gigantic loan to a number of fanatical visionaries who are ruining the great land of Russia.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Pembroke Dock (23 October 1924), quoted in The Times (24 October 1924), p. 16
“This is a Government of to-morrow. ... It is all swagger and pose, and no action. Let it be done. No, he cannot do it, he is too busy doing other things. Russia must come first. No time to carry schemes for the unemployed, no time to deal with profiteering in food and in materials for building. ... Yet there was time for a Russian loan. Moscow first, and Camberwell afterwards.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Camberwell, London, on Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Government (27 October 1924), quoted in The Times (28 October 1924), p. 8
“Toryism would confiscate, in the interests of a private monopoly, the produce of the industry, the toil, the capital, the risk and the effort of others. Socialism would also confiscate, in the interests of a State monopoly, the efforts of the individual. Liberalism stands for a free opportunity for the individual to do the best for himself and the nation.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh (20 December 1924), quoted in The Times (22 December 1924), p. 12
“Britain is Liberal; Britain is not Tory; Britain is not Socialist; Britain is not standstill; Britain is not revolutionary; Britain is sanely progressive. It means to go on, but not to go over. Therefore the temper of Britain is Liberal.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1924 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh (20 December 1924), quoted in The Times (22 December 1924), p. 12
“If you scratch a Conservative, you find a Fascist.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the London Young Liberal Federation in the National Liberal Club (5 January 1925), quoted in John Campbell, Lloyd George: The Goat in the Wilderness, 1922–1931 (1977), p. 109
“The one thing this country would not stand from a Tory Government was Toryism.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Albert Hall (30 January 1925), quoted in The Times (31 January 1925), p. 8
“Socialism means the community in bonds. If you establish a Socialist community it means the most comprehensive, universal, and pervasive tyranny that this country has ever seen, the flaw that enters into everything in all the relations of life. It is like the sand of the desert. It gets into your food, your clothes, your machinery, the very air you breathe. They are all gritty with regulations, orders, decrees, rules. That is what Socialism means. You cannot trust liberty to Socialism. The only hope of liberty is in Liberalism, for Liberalism alone believes in it.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Albert Hall (30 January 1925), quoted in The Times (31 January 1925), p. 8
“The world year by year is spinning rapidly away from that evil environment and the frenzy, carnage, and savagery. The firmament is clearing. The springtime of Liberalism is at hand, and with due labour we shall reap the harvest in season.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Albert Hall (30 January 1925), quoted in The Times (31 January 1925), p. 8
“It is no use simply saying, "Little children, love one another," if one set of children can get nearly all the toffee and the others have very little.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons in response to Stanley Baldwin's "Give peace in our time, O Lord" speech (26 March 1925)
“The action of the Government which had had the most disastrous effect on British trade was their premature and precipitate restoration of the gold standard before our credit was ripe for that departure. It had made sterling dearer and thus artificially put up the price of British goods in the neutral markets, where we were already competing on very narrow margins with our trade rivals. At this very hour coalowners and miners had been driven to the brink of a yawning chasm of strife, largely through this deed of egregious recklessness by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Eastern Counties Liberal Federation in Wisbech (10 July 1925), quoted in The Times (11 July 1925), p. 16
“The [Conservative] Government seemed hopeless and confused and without purpose... Unfortunately, the men who ought to be awake were slumbering, and in their dreams they babbled incoherencies about good will and subsidies... There had never been a more pitiful exhibition than that made by the Prime Minister in the debate on unemployment.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Eastern Counties Liberal Federation in Wisbech (10 July 1925), quoted in The Times (11 July 1925), p. 16
“Quite frankly, the Government were afraid of facing cold steel... The Home Secretary has been delivering a great many speeches recently about the Red peril. It really is no use barking at the Red Flag every time it cracks in the wind, whilst his chief is engaged in humbly gliding the flag staff—and with standard gold. Really it is very sad to see the Chancellor of the Exchequer assisting in that operation. He was very eager to fight the Reds on the Volga. I am very sorry to see him running away from them on the Thames and leaving his purse behind.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons after the government announced it had appointed the Samuel Commission in order to avert a general strike (6 August 1925)
“At the last Election hon. Members opposite were very gallantly fighting against the flaming apostles of Zinovieff and beating them badly. To-night they are being herded into the Red Lobby. The hand that directs them will be the hand of the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury, but the voice that compels them is the voice of Mr. Cook.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (6 August 1925)
“Russia can play the fool and survive because no Government can destroy her natural resources, but if you have the anarchy which Bolshevism and revolution brings in this country, we shall be inevitably ruined.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Stockport Town Hall (11 September 1925), quoted in The Times (14 September 1925), p. 14
“I know the expense of this would not pay 1 per cent. interest. Perhaps not, but it would pay better than doles to rot men in idleness, and their work would leave the national estate for ever richer. On every account the best exchange for the workless is an exchange of the green doors of the Labour Bureau for the green fields of Britain.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Killerton Park, near Exeter, opening the Liberal land campaign (17 September 1925), quoted in The Times (18 September 1925), p. 14
“If it is right that the State should resume its authority over the land for the purposes of burying the dead, it is surely also right that it should exercise its ownership where it is necessary it should do so to feed the living.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Killerton Park, near Exeter, opening the Liberal land campaign (17 September 1925), quoted in The Times (18 September 1925), p. 14
“This is not the time to add one torch to the flame of discontent in this land. I speak with solemnity, watching what is going on in the industrial centres. For Heaven's sake, do not let us drive the farm labourer into the ranks of those in rebellion against society.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Killerton Park, near Exeter, opening the Liberal land campaign (17 September 1925), quoted in The Times (18 September 1925), p. 14
“Restore the village life of England to its original brilliancy and glory. Every labourer should have half an acre as a right.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Killerton Park, near Exeter, opening the Liberal land campaign (17 September 1925), quoted in The Times (18 September 1925), p. 14
“I appeal that these proposals should be examined, and, if found to be wise, adopted and carried out in that spirit of high and fearless patriotism and resolution which lifted this nation to such heights of endeavour and success but seven years ago.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Killerton Park, near Exeter, opening the Liberal land campaign (17 September 1925), quoted in The Times (18 September 1925), p. 14
“Many Liberals who voted Conservative at the last General Election thought the country was in danger from Communism. But the greatest danger from Communism is that we should mismanage our affairs and that we will end in bankruptcy. I am not afraid of Communist orators or leaflets. I am not even afraid of the Russian subsidies to them; but I am afraid of such a muddle of our affairs that the working classes in despair will take anything.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Nairn (10 October 1925), quoted in The Times (12 October 1925), p. 11
“Until we have disarmament in Europe, no treaties will avail to prevent war. The temptation would be too great. If there is one Power with overwhelming force where its claims can be established easily and readily, the temptation will be to resort to the battlefield and not to the court of arbitration. It is therefore vital that there should be disarmament.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1925 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (18 November 1925)
“This is a direct attack on one class in the community, and that the largest, and the class that can least afford it.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on the government's Economy Bill, which reduced the government's contribution to Health and Unemployment Insurance (22 April 1926)
“We are met together this afternoon under the shadow of a grave industrial conflict of unknown magnitude. Apart altogether from the merits of the dispute, every citizen will feel it his duty to support the Government of to-day in the maintenance of order and in the organizing and facilitating of the essential services of the nation. (Cheers.) The country must come first always and all the time. It is very deplorable and all the more deplorable because in my honest judgment it was unnecessary.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Cambridge on the General Strike (1 May 1926), quoted in The Times (3 May 1926), p. 9
“There is no revolutionary purpose animating the union leaders, who are now in charge... The whole influence of the strike leaders will be exerted in the interests of law and order. Let us trust that a settlement will be reached whilst calm and restraint are being maintained on both sides. There are grave risks in the whole situation. I put my faith on British coolness and in the British Parliament.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Article on the General Strike published in American newspapers (9 May 1926), quoted in The Liberal Magazine, vol. 34 (1926), p. 362
“I...cannot see my way to join in declarations which condemn the General Strike while refraining from criticism of the Government, who are equally, if not more, responsible... I prefer the Liberal policy of trusting to conciliation rather than to force.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Godfrey Collins, explaining why he refused to attend a meeting of the Liberal Shadow Cabinet (10 May 1926), quoted in John Campbell, Lloyd George: The Goat in the Wilderness, 1922–1931 (1977), p. 139
“I was walking peacefully along my path when suddenly I was assailed by an angry bull of excommunication.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Manchester Reform Club on Asquith's rebuke to Lloyd George for not attending the Liberal Shadow Cabinet meeting on 10 May (5 June 1926), quoted in The Times (7 June 1926), p. 8
“But they say they cannot put up any longer with me as a colleague. It is a serious thing to split the Liberal Party on whether I am a more attractive colleague than Mr. Pringle. Why am I not? ... I tell you what it is. It is my instability. Now that is an old charge that has always been brought against any man who is alive. It is only the stick-in-the-muds that are stable.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Manchester Reform Club (5 June 1926), quoted in The Times (7 June 1926), p. 8
“I see the carrying of [Irish] Home Rule is ascribed to others. I cannot allow that. Home Rule was put through by me entirely, and I don't mind telling you that I sacrificed my Premiership to carrying through Home Rule.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Manchester Reform Club (5 June 1926), quoted in The Times (7 June 1926), p. 8
“There is only one question of principle, and upon that I stand, and that is if they mean to drum a man out of the Liberal Party because he has erred on the side of conciliation with millions of British workmen in a great dispute, on that proposition I fight right through to the end.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the Manchester Reform Club (5 June 1926), quoted in The Times (7 June 1926), p. 8
“The inequalities of society at the present moment were far too great to continue. There were certain essentials to material well-being that every man, woman, and child was entitled to... He regarded as the minima: adequate food, raiment, air, shelter, light—he meant the light of Heaven—to maintain a healthy existence—sound education...reasonable leisure for recreation, for enjoyment, and culture. This country could afford to supply them to all its citizens.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Oxford University Liberal Club at the Oxford Union (15 June 1926), quoted in The Times (16 June 1926), p. 18
“What was the use of talking about freedom if they had millions of people tethered to slums?”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Oxford University Liberal Club at the Oxford Union (15 June 1926), quoted in The Times (16 June 1926), p. 18
“There was something fundamentally wrong with our economic system. It was based upon injustice and could not last.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Welsh National Liberal Federation in Rhyl (9 July 1926), quoted in The Times (10 July 1926), p. 16
“If we had been as ready in 1924 with definite concrete proposals as we are today, we could have gone to the Labour Party and said: "Here are our proposals with regard to the land, electricity, and the mines, and the condition of our support is that you should deal with them." We should have now been in the third year of carrying out a great programme of social reform instead of being in the horrible muddle we are in at the present moment. Are we going to get another chance? I think we are.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Valedictory address to the Liberal Summer School in Oxford Town Hall (30 July 1926), quoted in The Times (31 July 1926), p. 17
“No. A Liberal I was born and a Liberal I die. I will not join Labour.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remarks to Tom Clarke, the editor of the Daily News (14 October 1926), quoted in Tom Clarke, My Lloyd George Diary (1939), p. 23
“The Chinese were highly civilised when the ancient Britons, to whom he belonged, were barbarian. This was an old, enlightened, and vast community of hard-working people, yet they were deprived of rights enjoyed by some of the smallest nations in the world that only a few centuries ago emerged from savagery.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1926 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Bradford (4 December 1926), quoted in The Times (6 December 1926), p. 9
“What is the trouble in Europe today? Immediately after the War the danger was Communism. The danger today is an aggressive nationalism. It is the trouble which you get in Italy and South-Eastern Europe. It is the trouble which you get in the Balkans. It is the trouble which you have got on the Eastern Frontier of Germany, where there is a much more powerful party than the Communist party in favour of aggressive action. That is the trouble today, and into this troubled Europe...you throw this stone, this bone of contention. It is a leap in the dark and a leap into a whirlpool.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on the Arcos raid (26 May 1927)
“It was an old struggle that Liberalism stood for. There was the great battle of Naseby when that great Liberal leader Oliver Cromwell planted the standard of liberty, fought a very good by-election for liberty, and won.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Hinckley during the Bosworth by-election campaign (30 May 1927), quoted in The Times (31 May 1927), p. 18
“As long as you have these huge armaments in the world, arbitration and conciliation will be made quite impossible, and that is common sense, because if you have a nation that has got overwhelming power behind it, it is intolerant, it is impatient of argument and of conference. That is really what led very largely to the Great War.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (24 November 1927)
“We are not in the moral position to enforce disarmament in Europe until we cut down our own expenditure at home... I say, quite frankly, that we must take the same risks for peace as we took for war. You must take some risks. Personally, I do not see where the risks are. I do not see an enemy on the horizon. These enemies do not develop very suddenly. They develop over a whole course of years; but I do not see where the enemy is now.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1927 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (24 November 1927)
“I am making no predictions and the Prime Minister is wise in taking that line, but I am perfectly certain that nothing will enable the German Empire for a generation or two to get anywhere near the same position of dominant force and menace that it was in before the War. I do not say they desire it—I do not believe there is any such desire in Germany at the present moment.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (27 March 1928)
“I have come all this distance and am prepared to face thousands of miners in the rain and to say I have done more for them than any of the Labour Party.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Bathgate during the Linlithgowshire by-election (2 April 1928), quoted in The Times (3 April 1928), p. 13
“Liberty is not merely a privilege to be conferred; it is a habit to be acquired.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (10 May 1928)
“Liberty has restraints but no frontiers.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: International Liberal Conference (July 1928)
“Sincerity is the surest road to confidence.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Aberystwyth (3 August 1928)
“A great party is not an errand boy to fetch and carry little parcels in one interest here, a class there, a section somewhere else. It is a great army carrying on behind the pillar of fire that leads the nation to the Promised Land.”
David Lloyd George (1863–1945) first seen 1928 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to the Welsh Liberal Summer School in Aberystwyth (3 August 1928), quoted in The Times (4 August 1928), p. 7