Beveridge Quotes & Sayings

The Philippines are ours forever. They are not capable of self- government. How could they be? They are not a self-governing race. — Albert J. Beveridge

It is a noble land that God has given us: a land that can feed and clothe the world; a land whose coastlines would enclose half the countries of Europe; a land set like a sentinel between the two imperial oceans of the globe. — Albert J. Beveridge

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

Faith in one's self unlocks those hidden powers that all of us have, but that few of us use. — Albert J. 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

Facts and ideas are dead in themselves and it is the imagination that gives life to them. — Sean Patrick

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

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

[Beveridge] was a driven man, right to the end; his last words, enunciated clearly from his death bed at the age of eighty-four, showed that the aging social reformer was still haunted by the memory of those sick men on the East London streets. 'I have a thousand things to do,' he said, and died. — T.R. Reid

If liberty is worth keeping and free representative government worth saving, we must stand for all American fundamentals-not some, but all. All are woven into the great fabric of our national well-being. We cannot hold fast to some only, and abandon others that, for the moment, we find inconvenient. If one American fundamental is prostrated, others in the end will surely fall. — Albert J. Beveridge

He has marked the American people as His chosen nation to finally lead in the regeneration of the world. This is the divine mission of America ... The Philippines are ours forever. We will not repudiate our duty in the archipelago. We will not abandon our opportunity in the Orient. We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world. — Albert J. 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

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

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

And we will move forward to our work, not howling out regrets like slaves whipped to their burdens, but with gratitude for a task worthy of our strength, and thanksgiving to Almighty God that He has marked us as His chosen people, henceforth to lead in the regeneration of the world. — Albert J. Beveridge

Faith in oneself unlocks those hidden powers that all of us have, but that so few of us use. — Albert J. 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

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

He has made us the master organizers of the world ... to overwhelm the forces of reaction throught the earth ... This is the divine mission of America ... We are trustees of the world's progress, guardians of its righteous peace. [Progressive] — Albert J. 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 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

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

He takes another bite of the hairy fruit and marvels how the bullet from his Winchester did to her head what his teeth did to her kiwi. — Laurence Beveridge

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

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

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

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

I think the quality of something like the Beveridge, for instance, will have a life of its own. — Neville Marriner

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

What passes for wine among us, is not the juice of the grape. It is an adulterous mixture, brewed up of nauseous ingredients, by dunces, who are bunglers in the art of poison-making; and yet we, and our forefathers, are and have been poisoned by this cursed drench, without taste or flavour - The only genuine and wholesome beveridge in England, is London porter, and Dorchester table-beer; but as for your ale and your gin, your cyder and your perry, and all the trashy family of made wines, I detest them as infernal compositions, contrived for the destruction of the human species. — Tobias Smollett

I can't help suspecting, that there is, or may be some regurgitation from the bath into the cistern of the pump. In that case, what a felicate beveridge is quaffed by the drinkers; medicated with the sweat and the dirt, and dandriff; and the abominable of various kinds, from twenty different diseased bodies, parboiling in the kettle below. — Tobias Smollett

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

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