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Robert Menzies
44 quotes
“At last we are in England. Our journey to Mecca has ended and our minds abandoned to those reflections which can so strangely (unless you remember our traditions and our upbringing) move the souls of those who go "home" to a land they have never seen.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary (21 March 1935), on first seeing the during his trip to England. — Judith Brett, Political Lives (1997), p. 76
“I am today beginning to understand as I have never understood before, the secret springs of English poetry and English thought and the getting of that wisdom which infuses the slow English character. The green and tranquil place sends forth from her soil the love of peace and of good humour and of contentment.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diary (11 May 1935), after visiting Cambridgeshire. — Judith Brett, Political Lives (1997), pp. 76–7
“What Great Britain calls the is to us the near north.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Policy speech (1939), quoted by C. Hartley Grattan, "An Australian–American Axis?", in Harper's Magazine, vol. 180 (May 1940), p. 562
“I would like to thank all those present—and those who are no longer present.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech on the rise of Hitler's Germany (July 1939), from which interjectors were expelled by the police. — "Mr. Menzies' 'Departed Friends'", The Mirror, vol. 17, no. 891 (15 July 1939), p. 17
“We can lose this war, and with it we can lose all. But we shall not lose it if every individual in the British Empire determines that for him there shall be nothing but cheerful and self-sacrificing effort until the war is over. I tell you quite bluntly that Australia cannot play her proper part in the winning of this war if she subtracts from her war effort by one unnecessary grumble, or by one act of sectional selfishness, or by the unnecessary loss of one day’s work.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1940 election campaign speech, delivered at Camberwell, Victoria (2 September 1940) — "Robert Menzies (1940)" Australian Federal Election Speeches (MoAD)
“I do not believe that the real life of this nation is to be found either in great luxury hotels and the petty gossip of so-called fashionable suburbs, or in the officialdom of the organised masses. It is to be found in the homes of people who are nameless and unadvertised, and who, whatever their individual religious conviction or dogma, see in their children their greatest contribution to the immortality of their race. The home is the foundation of sanity and sobriety; it is the indispensable condition of continuity; its health determines the health of society as a whole.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Forgotten People" radio talk (22 May 1942)
“The material home represents the concrete expression of the habits of frugality and saving "for a home of our own." Your advanced socialist may rave against private property even while he acquires it; but one of the best instincts in us is that which induces us to have one little piece of earth with a house and a garden which is ours; to which we can withdraw, in which we can be among our friends, into which no stranger may come against our will.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Forgotten People" radio talk (22 May 1942)
“A great house, full of loneliness, is not a home. “Stone walls do not a prison make”, nor do they make a house. They may equally make a stable or a piggery. Brick walls, dormer windows and central heating need not make more than a hotel. My home is where my wife and children are. The instinct to be with them is the great instinct of civilised man; the instinct to give them a chance in life – to make them not leaners but lifters – is a noble instinct.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Forgotten People" radio talk (22 May 1942), quoting a line of "To Althea, from Prison" by Richard Lovelace
“The great vice of democracy – a vice which is exacting a bitter retribution from it at this moment – is that for a generation we have been busy getting ourselves on to the list of beneficiaries and removing ourselves from the list of contributors, as if somewhere there was somebody else’s wealth and somebody else’s effort on which we could thrive.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Forgotten People" radio talk (22 May 1942)
“Are you looking forward to a breed of men after the war who will have become boneless wonders? Leaners grow flabby; lifters grow muscles. Men without ambition readily become slaves. Indeed, there is much more in slavery in Australia than most people imagine. How many hundreds of thousands of us are slaves to greed, to fear, to newspapers, to public opinion – represented by the accumulated views of our neighbours! Landless men smell the vapours of the street corner. Landed men smell the brown earth, and plant their feet upon it and know that it is good.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Forgotten People" radio talk (22 May 1942)
“The country has great and imperative obligations to the weak, the sick, the unfortunate. It must give to them all the sustenance and support it can. We look forward to social and unemployment insurances, to improved health services, to a wiser control of our economy to avert if possible all booms and slumps which tend to convert labour into a commodity, to a better distribution of wealth, to a keener sense of social justice and social responsibility. We not only look forward to these things, we shall demand and obtain them.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Freedom from Want" radio talk (10 July 1942), the fifth of "The Forgotten People" series
“The most fundamental task in front of us is to educate a new generation, not for mere money-making or to comply with the law, but for an enlightened citizenship based upon honest thinking and human understanding.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Schools and the War" radio talk (16 October 1942), the thirtieth of "The Forgotten People" series)
“The best epitaph for a true democrat will not be, "I tickled people's ears, I got their votes, I spent their money", but, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1942 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Sickness of Democracy" radio talk (30 October 1942), the thirty-fourth of "The Forgotten People" series
“One thing about bureaucrats is that they never swallow their young. Leave them alone and you'll find them increasing every year.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: At a Liberal Party rally in Melbourne (1946). Quoted in Ray Robinson, The Wit of Sir Robert Menzies (1966)
“The Communists are the most unscrupulous opponents of religion, of civilised government, of law and order, of national security. Abroad, but for the threat of aggressive Russian Imperialism, there would be real peace today. Communism in Australia is an alien and destructive pest. If elected, we shall outlaw it.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1949 election campaign speech delivered in Melbourne (10 November 1949)
“The highest production and living standards cannot be achieved without a new and human spirit in the industrial world. No industry can succeed without the co-operation of capital, management and labour. Each must be encouraged. Each must be fairly rewarded. Between the three there must be mutual understanding and respect.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1949 election campaign speech delivered in Melbourne (10 November 1949)
“Australia urgently needs more people, and we shall vigorously continue a drive for them. They should be selected with regard to our national needs, and their capacity to become absorbed into our community. Though we naturally want as many migrants as we can get of British stock, we denounce all attempts to create hostilities against any migrant or group of migrants, whether Jew or Gentile, on the grounds of race or religion. Once received into our community, a new citizen is entitled to be treated in every way as a fellow-Australian.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1949 election campaign speech delivered in Melbourne (10 November 1949)
“If I have tried to observe the personal courtesies of public life, it is not because I fail to hate the political enemy’s creed. If I have sought to find some humour in the conflict, it is not because I under-estimate the gravity of the battle. The best years of my life have been given to what I deeply believe is a struggle for freedom.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1949 election campaign speech delivered in Melbourne (10 November 1949)
“Twice in this century men have died by the millions, largely because in what might have been the golden age of history men have learned to live with machines and have forgotten how to live with one another.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1949 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1949 election campaign speech delivered in Melbourne (10 November 1949) — "Robert Menzies (1949)", Australian Federal Election Speeches (MoAD)
“If we want to make our contribution to the pacification of the world, it is our duty to present to the world the spectacle of a rich country with a great people, with an adequate population — with a population which may justly say to the rest of the world: 'We are here; we propose to maintain our integrity as a nation; and our warrant for that is that we are using the resources which God has given into our hands.'”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Citizenship Convention, Canberra (23 January 1950). Quoted in David Day, Claiming a Continent (1997), p. 388
“The real and active Communists in Australia present us with our immediate problem — not the woolly-headed dupes, not the people who are pushed to the front in order to present a respectable appearance, but the real and active Communists.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: House of Representatives, Canberra (27 April 1950). Quoted in Michael Fullilove, Men and Women of Australia!, 2nd ed. (2014), p. 165
“Heckler: I wouldn't vote for you if you were the Archangel Gabriel.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) said by 1978 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Menzies: If I were the Archangel Gabriel, you wouldn't be in my constituency.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Conversation with interjecting heckler in Williamstown, Victoria (1954). — Michael Fullilove, "Gough Whitlam, Paul Keating and Robert Menzies, our holy trinity of speakers", (12 September 2014)
“A vehement concentration upon 'rights' obscures the vital fact that unless duties are accepted and performed by each of us, not only our rights but the rights of others will die for want of nourishment. If we were all tired democrats, eager beneficiaries but reluctant contributors, democracy would collapse under its own weight.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The First William Queale Memorial Lecture, Adelaide (22 October 1954)
“Democracy is the greatest system of government yet devised by man; but it has its weaknesses and its dangers. So far from lessening the responsibilities of the individual, it magnifies them. When one man was the ruler, it was no doubt a matter for thankfulness that he should be wise and honest and competent. But now that we are rulers, we must all seek to be as wise and honest and competent as honest effort can make us.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The First William Queale Memorial Lecture, Adelaide (22 October 1954)
“Our slogan is Australia Unlimited, and we pronounce it with confidence.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Election speech, Canterbury, Victoria (29 October 1958)
“A national election campaign is not a conflict of self-interest, with the prize going to the highest bidder. It is an occasion for a re-statement of faith, a renewal of zeal, and a clear vision of the future.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1958 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Election speech, Canterbury, Victoria (29 October 1958)
“I am an immense believer in continuity. I am not a believer in looking at the past because it is dead; but looking at the past because it is living; looking at the past because it reminds us that we are in the great procession of life. Any man who walked in the procession of life and who aims at doing anything in life, who is unaware of what went before him, unaware of the great truths that have come down to him, is a foolish man. He is, essentially, a short-sighted man.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Newington College, Sydney (29 April 1961)
“All I ask you to remember, in this country of yours, is that every man, woman and child who even sees you with a passing glimpse as you go by, will remember it – remember it with joy, remember it in the words of the old seventeenth-century poet who wrote those famous words – "I did but see her passing by And yet I love her till I die.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reception at Parliament House, Canberra, in honour of Queen Elizabeth II (18 February 1963), quoting from the oft-anthologised lyric "There Is a Lady Sweet and Kind" by Thomas Ford — "Transcript 690", PM Transcripts (PM…
“When people in England make jesting remarks to me about these lowly origins of our now thriving and law-abiding Commonwealth, I make the good-natured retort that, though many thousands of convicted persons were sent to America, and many thousands to Australia, the records show that the great majority of persons convicted in England during the transportation era remained in England.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Jefferson Oration, Monticello, Virginia (4 July 1963)
“I am British to the bootstraps!”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at a luncheon (1964). Quoted by C. Hartley Grattan, "Evatt Notebook", p. 7, HRHRC Box 30, file 2: 1. — Laurie Hergenhan, No Casual Traveller (1995), Ch. 11
“There have been, in the course of recorded history, some men of power who have cast shadows across the world. Winston Churchill, on the contrary, was a fountain of light and of hope. [...] His body will be carried on the Thames, a river full of history. With one heart we all feel, with one mind we all acknowledge, that it will never have borne a more precious burden, or been enriched by more splendid memories.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Eulogy for Sir Winston Churchill, delivered from the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral, during the funeral (30 January 1965). — A. L. McLeod, Australia Speaks (Sydney: Wentworth Press, 1969), p. 153
“There has grown up a legend that the whole [[w:Petrov Affair|[Petrov] affair]] was a cleverly timed political scheme. This charge was made by Dr Evatt, the Leader of the Opposition, time after time, and was shown to be false time after time. But, as so frequently happens in life, the picturesque slander outlives the sober answer.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Measure of the Years (1970), Ch. 18: The Petrov Spy Case
“[O]ne of the consequences of the inevitable pragmatisms of politics is that statesmen cannot afford the luxury of accepting theories as facts.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Measure of the Years (1970), Ch. 19: Looking Forward
“There is hardly a section of the community that doesn't in one breath protest undying hostility to Government interference and, in the next breath, pray for it.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Ray Robinson, The Wit of Sir Robert Menzies (1966)
“'I pay my taxes', says somebody, as if that were an act of virtue instead of one of compulsion.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Ray Robinson, The Wit of Sir Robert Menzies (1966)
“I owe my tolerable health to having selected my parents well.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Ray Robinson, The Wit of Sir Robert Menzies (1966)
“I have had many strange and some bitter experiences in my political life.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted as an epigraph in Edgar George Holt, Politics is People (1969), half-title
“It is my melancholy duty to inform you officially that, in consequence of the persistence of Germany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her, and that, as a result, Australia is also at war. No harder task can fall to the lot of a democratic leader than to make such an announcement.Great Britain and France, with the cooperation of the British Dominions, have struggled to avoid this tragedy. They have, as I firmly believe, been patient; they have kept the door of negotiation open; they have given no cause for aggression. But in the result their efforts have failed and we are, therefore, as a great family of nations, involved in a struggle which we must at all costs win, and which we believe in our hearts we will win.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: National radio broadcast (3 September 1939) announcing the British declaration of war on Germany to the Australian public. — Sir Paul Hasluck, The Government and the People (1952), p. 152
“Many times I have said, and I repeat it tonight, that we do badly to think of the pioneers as grandfathers, with beards and bowyangs; dead and gone, their labours completed. For the truth is that when a nation gives up pioneering, it goes back. A pioneer is, quite simply, one who breaks new ground or sets out on new adventures. His essence is that he is willing to tackle a new problem, and has a sense of responsibility for the future. Such qualities are not common, and therefore we cannot all be managers. But unless in every generation we have an adequate supply of pioneers, future generations will not call us blessed. Flashy policies, get-rich-quick schemes, the preferring of big current dividends to solid reserves for future development; these are the negation of the pioneering spirit, for they deny or ignore responsibility for the future.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The First William Queale Memorial Lecture, Adelaide (22 October 1954)
“Most of us at Canberra enjoy the friendliest personal relations. We have great matters in common. We are all Australians, of common race, language, literature, traditions, and religious faith. With few exceptions, we began life with no advantages of wealth or social position. We believe in the equal rule of law and in the dignity of self-government. We are British through and through. We are for the Crown. We are the Queen's men and women. We all believe in progress, in development, in social justice. What a wealth of agreement we have here! We disagree, of course, about socialism; about the limits of functions of government; about financial policies; about the principles of administration; about foreign policy; about many things. But the truth remains that, if we concentrate on our differences and forget our unities, politics will sound and be like civil war. The one thing that the bitter and narrow partisans forget is that continuity of national security and growth require, on great matter, a certain continuity of policy. We secure that by remembering our unities; we destroy it by thinking only of our differences.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The First William Queale Memorial Lecture, Adelaide (22 October 1954)
“There is a tremendous amount of talk engaged in about economic problems; there is a great amount of discussion about how much more money A gets or B gets or C gets. We could easily become man for man, woman for woman, the richest country in the Southern Hemisphere, but it won't matter very much unless we can say that we are the most civilised country in the Southern Hemisphere. Civilised because we understand the unselfish duties of citizenship; civilised because we have come to understand the importance of the human being, the dignity of the human being, the dignity of labour, the responsibility of riches. These are the tests of civilisation, and our great task is to produce a civilised nation.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the Western Australian convention of the Liberal Party, South Perth Civic Centre (30 July 1962)
“[O]ur whole history has been a history of adventure, sailing wherever ships could sail. This island continent came out of the mists; it was developed by people who had the spirit of adventure. It has been found by people who had the spirit of adventure. Wherever you go in Australia, you see all the memorials, not cairns of store, but the memorials in farms and stations and factories to the people who had the spirit of adventure. And without that spirit of adventure, Australia can't become by the turn of the century the great and powerful and respected country to whose noises I would hope to listen from the grave.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the Western Australian convention of the Liberal Party, South Perth Civic Centre (30 July 1962)
“It has become the vogue for some writers in Australia to refer to me, apparently under the impression that they are using a derogatory expression, as an . I certainly am, and would be sadly disappointed if I thought that a majority of my fellow citizens were not of the same mind. I love Britain because I love Australia, and like to think that I have done her some service. I cannot go anywhere in Australia without being reminded of our British inheritance; our system of responsible government and Parliamentary institutions, our adherence to the rule of law and, indeed, our systems of law themselves; our traditions of integrity in high places and of incorruptibility in our Civil Service. We derive all these things from Westminster. Our language comes to us from Britain and so does the bulk of our literature. To have no love for a relatively small community in the North Sea which created and handed on these vital matters would be, in my mind, a miserable act of ingratitude. The fact that in Australia we have received all these things, and have made all our own notable contributions to their development, not only fills me with pride but strengthens my affection.”
Robert Menzies (1894–1978) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Measure of the Years (1970), Ch. 19: Looking Forward