WILLIAM BEVERIDGE QUOTES
British economist & politician (1879-1963)
Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens.
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE
Full Employment in a Free Society
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 HENRY BEVERIDGE
Full Employment in a Free Society
The State in organising 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
Social Insurance and Allied Services
Unemployment is like a headache or a high temperature -- unpleasant and exhausting but not carrying in itself any explanation of its cause.
WILLIAM HENRY BEVERIDGE
Causes and Cures of Unemployment
The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man.
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE
Social Insurance and Allied Services
The state is or can be master of money, but in a free society it is master of very little else.
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE
Voluntary Action
The essence of civilization is that men should come to be led more by hope and ambition and example and less by fear.
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE
Full Employment in a Free Society
It is, of course, quite impossible to make forecasts about the future except on the hypothetical postulate that in all matters where the nature of changes cannot be definitely foreseen and taken into account, the future is assumed to be a continuance of the past.
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE
Full Employment in a Free Society
A revolutionary moment in the world's history is a time for revolutions, not for patching.
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE
Social Insurance and Allied Services
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.
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE
Social Insurance and Allied Services
I have spent most of my life most happily in making plans for others to carry out.
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE
Power and Influence
In practice the word democracy is seldom used rationally. It has become for most politicians a term of endearment for the institutions they prefer or of praise for any measures that they desire.
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE
Power and Influence
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
Social Insurance and Allied Services
The trouble in modern democracy is that men do not approach to leadership 'til they have lost the desire to lead anyone.
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE
The Observer, April 15, 1934
Liberals are not all going to say exactly the same at all times; I hope they never will, because they would cease to be Liberals.
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE
Why I Am a Liberal
Scratch a pessimist and you find often a defender of privilege.
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE
The Observer, December 17, 1943