David Lloyd George Quotes

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

Death is the most convenient time to tax rich people.

The conventional heaven with its angels perpetually singing etc nearly drove me mad in my youth and made me an atheist for ten years. My opinion is that we shall be reincarnated.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Liberty has restraints but no frontiers.

Explain to me again the difference between superstitious beliefs or pagan incantations, and scientific ones. Be braver - you cannot cross a chasm in two small jumps.

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.

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

When they circumcised Herbert Samuel they threw away the wrong bit

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

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

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.

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.

He is brilliant - to the top of his boots.

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

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

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

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."

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

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

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

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.

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

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

The home front is always underrated by Generals in the field. And yet that is where the Great War was won and lost. The Russian, Bulgarian, Austrian and German home fronts fell to pieces before their armies collapsed.

A body of 500 men chosen at random from amongst the unemployed.

Wild men, screaming through the keyholes.

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

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.

Aristrocracy is like cheese. The older it is the higher it becomes.

If you want to understand a subject promise to speak on it.

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

Believe me, Germany is unable to wage war.

You get to know more of the character of a man in a round of golf than in six months of political experience.

It is either Christ or chaos.

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

Great men sometimes lose the reins and lose their heads. This time, let us hope that they will retain them and that when victory is assured they will sit down and reckon what the future is going to be for their countries as well as for other lands.

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

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

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.

Every man has a House of Lords in his own head. Fears, prejudices, misconceptions - those are the peers and they are hereditary.