David Lloyd George

It is not too much to say that when the Great War broke out our Generals had the most important lessons of their art to learn. Before they began they had much to unlearn. Their brains were cluttered with useless lumber, packed in every niche and corner.

1938

Death is the most convenient time to tax rich people.

In Lord Riddell's Intimate Diary of the Peace Conference and After, 1918-1923 (1933), 1933

Liberty has restraints but no frontiers.

International Liberal Conference (July 1928), 1928

Sincerity is the surest road to confidence.

Speech at Aberystwyth (3 August 1928), 1928

Liberty is not merely a privilege to be conferred; it is a habit to be acquired.

Speech in the House of Commons (10 May 1928), 1928

The finest eloquence is that which gets things done; the worst is that which delays them.

Speech at the Paris Peace Conference (January 1919), 1919

What is our task? To make Britain a fit country for heroes to live in.

Speech in Wolverhampton (23 November 1918), quoted in The Times (25 November 1918), p. 13, 1918

Diplomats were invented simply to waste time.

On preparation for the Paris Peace Conference (November 1918), 1918

Personally I am a sincere advocate of all means which would lead to the settlement of international disputes by methods such as those which civilization has so successfully set up for the adjustment of differences between individuals. But I am also bound to say this — that I believe it is essential in the highest interests, not merely of this country, but of the world, that Britain should at all hazards maintain her place and her prestige amongst the Great Powers of the world. Her potent influence has many a time been in the past, and may yet be in the future, invaluable to the cause of human liberty. It has more than once in the past redeemed Continental nations, who are sometimes too apt to forget that service, from overwhelming disaster and even from national extinction. I would make great sacrifices to preserve peace. I conceive that nothing would justify a disturbance of international good will except questions of the gravest national moment. But if a situation were to be forced upon us in which peace could only be preserved by the surrender of the great and beneficent position Britain has won by centuries of heroism and achievement, by allowing Britain to be treated where her interests were vitally affected as if she were of no account in the Cabinet of nations, then I say emphatically that peace at that price would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure.

Speech of 1914; quoted in The Brunswick and Coburg Leader (16 October 1914). The "empire" mentioned is Austria-Hungary., 1914

Four spectres haunt the Poor — Old Age, Accident, Sickness and Unemployment. We are going to exorcise them. We are going to drive hunger from the hearth. We mean to banish the workhouse from the horizon of every workman in the land.

Speech in Reading (1 January 1910), 1910

Who ordained that a few should have the land of Britain as a perquisite, who made 10,000 people owners of the soil and the rest of us trespassers in the land of our birth?

Speech in Newcastle (9 October 1909), quoted in The Times (11 October 1909), p. 6, 1909

The question will be asked, "Should 500 men, ordinary men, chosen accidentally from among the unemployed, override the judgment...of millions of people who are engaged in the industry which makes the wealth of the country?"

On the House of Lords, speech in Newcastle (9 October 1909), quoted in The Times (11 October 1909), p. 6, 1909

Mr. Chamberlain is right in so far as he says that things are not well in this country. We cannot feed the hungry with statistics of national prosperity, or stop the pangs of famine by reciting to a man the prodigious number of cheques that pass through the clearing-house. We must therefore propose something better than Mr. Chamberlain.

Speech in the House of Commons (6 January 1904), 1904

A fully equipped Duke costs as much to keep up as two Dreadnoughts, and Dukes are just as great a terror, and they last longer.

At eleven o’clock this morning came to an end the cruellest and most terrible War that has ever scourged mankind. I hope we may say that thus, this fateful morning, came to an end all wars.