David Lloyd George Quotes

The Western skies are already black with the flight of capital seeking safety beyond the Atlantic. The fright is real. There has been nothing like it since horror filled the streets of Rome at the approach of Attila.

In this election we have killed Protection and destroyed reaction. It now remains to us to make sure that at the next election, which cannot be long delayed, we shall put before the people a programme of well-considered and soundly-constructed social reform which shall kill the crudities of Socialism.

It was a dire alternative for a country to have a choice between tariff reform, which destroyed its industries, and Socialism and Communism, which destroyed the whole fabric upon which prosperity was based... It amounted to a choice of which they were going to cut—the carotid artery of foreign trade or the jugular vein of capital.

The hope of the future would be found in a party of sane progress. The present danger was to identify progress with the Socialist Party... It was important, therefore, that they had revived a party which represented sound, sensible, rational progress.

Liberalism stands for the safe middle course.

I think it is an insult to the intelligence of the nation to feed starving industries with the mildewed straw of last century, out of which, so far as I can see, every grain of statesmanship has been beaten.

He had always felt that they thought that in him they had a kindred spirit. That was true. Their great men were the men he admired; some of their greatest men were the men from whom he had drawn inspiration, notably Abraham Lincoln. The next day he was to start on a journey to see a country which he regarded as the great miracle of the West, where man had risen from the dead past to a new hope.

The French would never have dared to do what they have done had it not been for the fall of the Coalition.

Industrial countries are...engaged in improving their machinery, in order to save labour and increase production... The moment peace is restored in Europe, and the exchanges are stabilised...[y]ou will then be face to face with the real rivalry and the competition... I fear that the period of depression is going to be prolonged... we are in for a long period of depression such as we have not seen in our lifetime.

You do not deal with these evils by saying, "Let us unite together and fight Socialism". This a poor, sorry, sterile and selfish policy.

The white sheet of repentance is a very poor substitute for a mainsail.

Luckily, you have Britain up to its armpits in salt water, and therefore alone remaining cool.

Nothing struck me so much in the war as the disappearance of the individual, of the human being... I saw what the State machine was, that it destroyed the individual, absorbed him to itself, and I said, "Give me Liberty." That is what a complete Socialistic State would mean, once you carried it out. That is why I am a Liberal and not a Socialist. Socialism would enslave labour. For its own benefit, its own advantage, Socialism would in the end enslave labour. Liberalism has made labour free, and it is its business to preserve the freedom of labour.

If you want to know what Socialism is, I think you can get it for 1½d.—a copy of that legislation which is known as "Dora"—a most severe and repellent lady, and we are well rid of her.

The other dangers are from Socialism and Fascism. The menace of the latter is not an obvious one, but it is a very real one. You just look at the newspapers which practically created the present Government. You listen to the whispers that are going on—the admiration for Fascism, for its leadership, for its policy, the sort of hint that this is the way, that Signor Mussolini has shown the path for us here, not by concessions, not by giving way to the working classes, but by force—in the words of Signor Mussolini, "The people are tired of liberty." Are they? If they are, then God help them, and their children will live to regret it. There is nothing which is worth selling your freedom for.