William Beveridge Quotes

There is a very important distinction between a critical attitude of mind (or critical faculty) and a sceptical attitude.

The state is or can be master of money, but in a free society it is master of very little else.

I have spent most of my life most happily making plans for others to carry out.

The State, in organizing security should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility; in establishing a national minimum, it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than that minimum for himself and his family.

Scratch a pessimist and you will often find a defender of privilege.

Unemployment is like a headache or a high temperature - unpleasant and exhausting but not carrying in itself any explanation of its cause.

Full employment does not mean literally no unemployment; that is to say, it does not mean that every man and woman in the country who is fit and free for work is employed productively every day of his or her working life ... Full employment means that unemployment is reduced to short intervals of standing by, with the certainty that very soon one will be wanted in one's old job again or will be wanted in a new job that is within one's powers.

Let us proportion our alms to our ability, lest we provoke God to proportion His blessings to our alms.

The trouble in modern democracy is that men do not approach to leadership until they have lost the de e to lead anyone.

The human mind likes a strange idea as little as the body likes a strange protein and resists it with a similar energy.

There is no inherent mechanism in our present system which can with certainty prevent competitive sectional bargaining for wages from setting up a vicious spiral of rising prices under full employment.

Any proposals for the future, while they should use to the full the experience gathered in the past, should not be restricted by consideration of sectional interests established in the obtaining of that experience. Now, when the war is abolishing landmarks of every kind, is the opportunity for using experience in a clear field. A revolutionary moment in the world's history is a time for revolutions, not for patching.

A cockle-fish may as soon crowd the ocean into its narrow shell, as vain man ever comprehend the decrees of God!

Scratch a pessimist and you find often a defender of privilege.

Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens.