David Lloyd George Quotes

68 Sourced Quotes

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

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

David Lloyd George
[Lloyd George] said that Harding's speech on American naval aspirations made him feel that he would pawn his shirt rather than allow America to dominate the seas. If this was to be the outcome of the League of Nations propaganda, he was sorry for the world and in particular for America.

David Lloyd George
They condemn him [Hitler] for persecuting the Jews, but he has not shown half the ferocity which Cromwell showed towards the Irish Catholics—as for instance, in the siege of the fortress of Drogheda and the burning alive of its inmates.

David Lloyd George
[Churchill] would make a drum out of the skin of his mother in order to sound his own praises.

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

David Lloyd George
[Lloyd George] told me he did not see how we could get successfully through this war...It is clear that that damn fool Neville [Chamberlain] never gave a thought to that question - whether we would win - when he declared war. I am not against war, but I am against war when we have no chance of winning.

David Lloyd George
Anyhow, it is a different situation now to what it was then; Clemenceau had power; I shall wait until Winston is bust.

David Lloyd George
The Prime Minister should give an example of sacrifice, because there is nothing which can contribute more to victory than that he should sacrifice the seals of office.
Of Neville Chamberlain

David Lloyd George
Lucidity of speech is unquestionably one of the surest tests of mental precision.

David Lloyd George
As we came away we ran into Lloyd George. Turning to me he said: "What are you going to do, my boy, when you grow up?" "I'm going into the Navy, sir," I replied. He frowned. "There are many greater storms in politics. If it's piracy you want, with broadsides, boarding parties, walking the plank and blood on the deck, this is the place." His words had gone home. That evening I confided to my father that what Lloyd George had said had decided my life. It would be politics for me.

David Lloyd George
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

David Lloyd George
If you want to succeed in politics, you must keep your conscience well under control.

David Lloyd George
I am making a good fight for the old country & there is no one but me who could do it.

David Lloyd George
Sufficient conscience to bother him, but not sufficient to keep him straight.
Of Ramsay Macdonald

David Lloyd George
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.

David Lloyd George
Of all the bigotries that savage the human temper there is none so stupid as the anti-Semitic.

David Lloyd George
I sometimes wish that I were in the Labour Party. I would tear down all these institutions!

David Lloyd George
Wilson is adopting a dangerous line. He wants to pose as the great arbiter of the war. His Fourteen Points are very dangerous. He speaks of the freedom of the seas. That would involve the abolition of the right of search and seizure, and the blockade. We shall not agree to that. Such a change would not suit this country. Wilson does not see that by laying down terms without consulting the Allies, he is making their position very difficult. He had no right to reply to the German Note without consultation, and I insisted upon a cablegram being sent to him. The position is very disturbing.

David Lloyd George
[Lloyd George] then when on to say that the Imperial Conference had had a meeting that morning, and that he, Smuts, Hughes and Massey did not intend to allow the British Empire to take a back seat. Gt Britain had won the war. She had made enormous sacrifices in men and money, and they were quite determined that she should not be overshadowed by America.

David Lloyd George
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.

David Lloyd George