David Lloyd George Quotes

68 Sourced Quotes

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

David Lloyd George
The finest eloquence is that which gets things done and the worst is that which delays them.

David Lloyd George
Unless I am mistaken, by the steps we have taken [in Ireland] we have murder by the throat.

David Lloyd George
Death is the most convenient time to tax rich people.

David Lloyd George
On the 1905 Tory government:
They died with their drawn salaries in their hands.

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

David Lloyd George
This, Mr. Emmot, is a war Budget. It is for raising money to wage implacable warfare against poverty and squalidness. I cannot help hoping and believing that before this generation has passed away, we shall have advanced a great step towards that good time, when poverty, and the wretchedness and human degradation which always follows in its camp, will be as remote to the people of this country as the wolves which once infested its forests.

David Lloyd George
He has sat on the fence so long the iron has entered into his soul.
Of John Simon

David Lloyd George
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.

David Lloyd George
Sporting terms are pretty well understood wherever English is spoken … Well, then. The British soldier is a good sportsman … Germany elected to make this a finish fight with England … The fight must be to a finish – to a knock out.

David Lloyd George
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.

David Lloyd George
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.

David Lloyd George
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.

David Lloyd George
The Landlord is a gentleman who does not earn his wealth. He has a host of agents and clerks that receive for him. He does not even take the trouble to spend his wealth. He has a host of people around him to do the actual spending. He never sees it until he comes to enjoy it. His sole function, his chief pride, is the stately consumption of wealth produced by others.

David Lloyd George
What are ten, twenty, or thirty millions when the British Empire is at stake? This is an artillery war. We must have every gun we can lay hands upon.

David Lloyd George
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
A body of five hundred men chosen at random from amongst the unemployed.
Of the House of Lords

David Lloyd George
Quite frankly, I think Hitler will win. I do not say that Hitler will be able to invade this country. It is a very difficult channel to cross. Lots of people have tried it, including Napoleon... I would not have gone to war without having Russia on our side. It was an idiotic thing to do.

David Lloyd George
Who ordained that a few should have the land of Britain as a perquisite; who made ten thousand people owners of the soil and the rest of us trespassers in the land of our birth?

David Lloyd George
Great Britain would spend her last guinea to keep a navy superior to that of the United States or any other power.

David Lloyd George
When asked what he thought Balfour's place in history would be.:
He will be just like the scent on a pocket handkerchief.

David Lloyd George
The great peaks of honour we had forgotten—Duty, Patriotism, and—clad in glittering white—the great pinnacle of Sacrifice, pointing like a rugged finger to Heaven.

David Lloyd George
The truth is that we have got our way. We have got most of the things we set out to get. If you had told the British people twelve months ago that they would have secured what they have, they would have laughed you to scorn. The German Navy has been handed over; the German mercantile shipping has been handed over, and the German colonies have been given up. One of our chief trade competitors has been most seriously crippled and our Allies are about to become her biggest creditors. That is no small achievement. In addition, we have destroyed the menace to our Indian possessions.

David Lloyd George
The British Empire is a sisterhood of nations—the greatest in the world. Look at this table: There sits Africa—English and Boer; there sits Canada—French, Scotch & English; there sits Australia, representing many races—even Maoris; there sits India; here sit the representatives of England, Scotland & Wales; all we ask you to do is to take your place in this sisterhood of free nations. It is an invitation, Mr. De Valera: we invite you here.

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

David Lloyd George
Not badly, considering I was seated between Jesus Christ and Napoleon.

David Lloyd George
The House of Lords is not the watchdog of the constitution; it is Mr Balfour's poodle. It fetches and carries for him. It barks for him. It bites anyone that he sets it on to.

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

David Lloyd George
Of Arthur Balfour's impact on history:
No more than the whiff of scent on a lady's pocket handkerchief.

David Lloyd George
The question will be asked whether five hundred men, ordinary men, chosen accidentally from among the unemployed, should override the judgment of millions of people who are engaged in the industry which makes the wealth of the country.

David Lloyd George