David Lloyd George Quotes

The finest eloquence is that which gets things done.

Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.

If the people really knew [the truth] the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don't know and can't know.

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

One day while Lloyd George was making a political speech before a big crowd, a heckler yelled, "Wait a minute, Mr. George. Isn't it true your grandfather used to peddle tinware around here in an oxcart hauled by a donkey?" Lloyd George replied, "I digress just a moment and thank the gentlemen for calling that to my attention. It is true, my dear old grandfather used to peddle tinware with an old cart and a donkey. As a matter of fact, after this meeting is over, if my friend will come with me, I will show him that old cart, but I never knew until this minute what became of the ass."

We are fighting Germany, Austria and drink, and as far as I can see, the greatest of these three deadly foes is drink.

Four specters 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.

If you want to succeed in politics you must keep your conscience firmly under control.

The world is becoming like a lunatic asylum run by lunatics.

There is nothing so fatal to character as half finished tasks.

He has sat on the fence so long that the iron has entered his soul.

The man who tries to make the flag an object of a single party is a greater traitor to that flag than any man who fires at it.

A politician is a person with whose politics you don't agree; if you agree with him he's a statesman.

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?

Diplomats were invented simply to waste time.

No democracy has ever long survived the failure of its adherents to be ready to die for it. My own conviction is this, the people must either go on or go under.

Anything can be achieved in small, deliberate steps. But there are times you need the courage to take a great leap; you can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.

You cannot trust the interests of any class entirely to another class; and you cannot trust the interests of any sex to another sex.

A young man who isn't a socialist hasn't got a heart; an old man who is a socialist hasn't got a head.

Liberty has restraints but no frontiers.

What do you want to be a sailor for? There are greater storms in politics than you will ever find at sea. Piracy, broadsides, blood on the decks. You will find them all in politics.

Lucidity of speech is unquestionably one of the surest tests of mental precision...In my experience a confused talker is never a clear thinker.

Four specters haunt the poor - old age, accident, sickness and unemployment

Peace must be framed on so equitable a basis, that the nations would not wish to disturb it . . . so that the confidence of the German people shall be put in the equity of their cause and not in the might of their armies.

The League of Nations is the greatest humbug in history. They cannot even protect a little nation like Armenia. They do nothing but pass useless resolutions.

Doctinaires are the vultures of principle. They feed upon principle after it is dead.

Do not be afraid of taking a big step-you cannot cross a chasm in two steps.

With me a change of trouble is as good as a vacation.

The nations slithered over the brink into the boiling cauldron of war without any trace of apprehension or dismay... The nations backed their machines over the precipice not one of them wanted war, certainly not on this scale

He is brilliant - to the top of his boots.

Once blood is shed in a national quarrel reason and right are swept aside by the rage of angry men.

Independent thinking is not encouraged in a professional Army. It is a form of mutiny. Obedience is the supreme virtue.

God has chosen little nations as the vessels by which He carries His choicest wines to the lips of humanity to rejoice their hearts, to exalt their vision, to strengthen their faith, and if we had stood by when two little nations [Belgium and Serbia] were being crushed and broken by the brutal hands of barbarians, our shame would have rung down the everlasting ages.

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.

It is either Christ or chaos.

The government are behaving like a bevy of maiden aunts who have fallen among buccaneers.

The doctors are always changing their opinions. They always have some new fad.

When they circumcised Herbert Samuel they threw away the wrong bit

Sincerity is the surest road to confidence.

You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.

Golf is the only game where the worst player gets the best of it. He obtains more out of it as regards both exercise and enjoyment, for the good player gets worried over the slightest mistake, whereas the poor player makes too many mistakes to worry about them.

By thetest of our faith thehighest standard ofcivilization is the readiness to sacrifice for others.

If you listen to the neverdo's, it's never done.

Wisdom is like a baobab tree; no one individual can embrace it.

He [Hitler] is a very great man. "Fuhrer" is the proper name for him, for he is a born leader, yes, and statesman.

[Proportional representation is a] device for defeating democracy, the principle of which was that the majority should rule, and for bringing faddists of all kinds into Parliament, and establishing groups and disintegrating parties.

The stern hand of fate has scourged us to an elevation where we can see the great everlasting things which matter for a nation - the great peaks we had forgotten, of Honor, Duty, Patriotism, and clad in glittering white, the great pinnacle of Sacrifice pointing like a rugged finger to Heaven.

Death is the most convenient time to tax rich people.

It is always too late, or too little, or both. And that is the road to disaster.

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