Best William Beveridge Quotes & Sayings

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

Many discoveries must have been stillborn or smothered at birth. We know only those which survived. — William Ian Beardmore Beveridge

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

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

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. — William Beveridge

When adults first become conscious of something new, they usually either attack or try to escape from it ... Attack includes such mild forms as ridicule, and escape includes merely putting out of mind. — William Ian Beardmore Beveridge

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

Elaborate apparatus plays an important part in the science of to-day, but I sometimes wonder if we are not inclined to forget that the most important instrument in research must always be the mind of man. — William Ian Beardmore Beveridge

Paradoxical as it may at first appear, the fact is that, as W. H. George has said, scientific research is an art, not a science. — William Ian Beardmore Beveridge

If the way of heaven be narrow, it is not long; and if the gate be straight, it opens into endless life. — William Beveridge

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. — William Beveridge

Organisation of social insurance should be treated as one part only of a comprehensive policy of social progress. Social insurance fully developed may provide income security; it is an attack upon Want. But Want is one only of five giants on the road of reconstruction and in some ways the easiest to attack. The others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. — William Beveridge

The Imagination merely enables us to wander into the darkness of the unknown where, by the dim light of the knowledge we carry, we may glimpse something that seems of interest. But when we bring it out and examine it more closely it usually proves to be only trash whose glitter had caught our attention. Imagination is at once the source of all hope and inspiration but also of frustration. To forget this is to court despair. — William Ian Beardmore Beveridge

No one believes an hypothesis except its originator but everyone believes an experiment except the experimenter. — William Beveridge

Evelyn Waugh: How do you get your main pleasure in life, Sir William?
Sir William Beveridge: I get mine trying to leave the world a better place than I found it.
Waugh: I get mine spreading alarm and despondency and I get more satisfaction than you do. — Evelyn Waugh

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

Cultivate an intellectual habit of subordinating one's opinions and wishes to objective evidence and a reverence for things as they really are. — William Ian Beardmore Beveridge

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. — William Beveridge

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

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

The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of common man. — William Beveridge

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

Hypothesis is a toll which can cause trouble if not used properly. We must be ready to abandon our hypothesis as soon as it is shown to be inconsistent with the facts. — William Ian Beardmore Beveridge

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

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

Scratch a pessimist and you find often a defender of privilege. — William Beveridge

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. — William Beveridge