William Beveridge Quotes

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

William Beveridge

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

William Beveridge

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

William Beveridge

#4. 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

#5. 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

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

William Beveridge

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

William Beveridge

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

William Beveridge

#9. 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

#10. 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

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

William Beveridge

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

William Beveridge

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

William Beveridge

#14. No one believes an hypothesis except its originator but everyone believes an experiment except the experimenter.

William Beveridge

#15. 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

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

William Beveridge