Stanley Baldwin quotes - page 9

Stanley Baldwin was a British statesman who served as Prime Minister three times in the early 20th century. One of the key figures of the Conservative Party, he played a major role during periods of political and economic change in the United Kingdom. He is remembered for his efforts to unite the country during turbulent times and for his moderate approach to leadership. Here are 235 of his quotes:

I will not be responsible for the conduct of any Government in this country at this present time, if I am not given power to remedy the deficiencies which have accrued in our defensive services since the War.

Stanley Baldwin

The children of such a philosophy can only bring damnation to this country.

Stanley Baldwin

This massing of huge armaments on the Continent, even the work that we are doing-the money would be far better used for the progress of the world.

Stanley Baldwin

That there should be wars between nations who learned their first lessons in citizenship from the same mother seems to me fratricidal insanity.

Stanley Baldwin

The great task of this generation, in my view, is to save democracy, to preserve it and to inspire it.

Stanley Baldwin

What happens to all the laws placed on the statute book? If half the hopes of their promoters had been realised, would not the millennium have arrived ere this?

Stanley Baldwin

Nationalism can take on some very ugly shapes. It looks as if as many crimes will be committed in its name as in the name of Religion or of Liberty.

Stanley Baldwin

On June 8th there was a little conference in London, and the French and Germans laid their colours on our Cenotaph. When men can do that there should be no more fighting.

Stanley Baldwin

The love of country is a deep and universal instinct, freighted with ancient memories and subtle associations. Men who deny their national spiritual heritage in exchange for a vague and watery cosmopolitanism become less than men; they starve and dwarf their personalities; they turn into a sort of political eunuch.

Stanley Baldwin

The price man has to pay for the good things he enjoys is constant watchfulness lest they be employed for evil. Has not this been the case from the dawn of history with drink, language, and liberty? ...Let us take our stand on public right and a law of nations with Grotius rather than with Machiavelli; let us seek to moralise our public intercourse and reduce the area of casuistry and duplicity. That is not only the accepted principle of the best amongst us, but it is, I am sure, in harmony with a widespread instinct in the British people. It asserted itself in August 1914 when it was made plain that ethics was not a branch of politics, but the reverse.

Stanley Baldwin

The dispute between the League and Italy is real, but it is not more real than our friendship...in being true to our pledged word to the League we wish also to preserve an old friendship. But loyalty to our pledge is inescapable, for, as the Secretary of State said in his recent Note to the French Government, we look on the League as the only escape from "the senseless disasters of the past."

Stanley Baldwin

War would end if the dead could return.

Stanley Baldwin

You will find in politics that you are much exposed to the attribution of false motive. Never complain and never explain.

Stanley Baldwin

I am not struck so much by the diversity of testimony as by the many-sidedness of truth.

Stanley Baldwin

The intelligent are to the intelligentsia what a gentleman is to a gent.

Stanley Baldwin

A statesman wants courage and a statesman wants vision; but believe me, after six months' experience, he wants first, second, third and all the time - patience.

Stanley Baldwin

I am a man of peace. I am longing and working and praying for peace, but I will not surrender the safety and security of the British constitution. You placed me in power eighteen months ago by the largest majority accorded to any party for many, many years. Have I done anything to forfeit that confidence? Cannot you trust me to ensure a square deal to secure even justice between man and man?

Stanley Baldwin

...to me, at least, this unemployment problem is the most crucial problem of our country. I regard it as such. I can fight it. I am willing to fight it. I cannot fight it without weapons. I have for myself come to the conclusion that-owing to the conditions that exist to-day in the world, having regard to the economic environment, having regard to the situation of our country-if we go on pottering along as we are we shall have grave unemployment with us to the end of time. And I have come to the conclusion myself that the only way of fighting this subject is by protecting the home market. (Loud and continued cheering.)

Stanley Baldwin

Your country is a country for men from the North, the hardy virile races. Quality before quantity any day. Build up with the best. What does it matter if it is a hundred years, or two hundred years, or more, before your country is full? Keep the stock you have, and the men and women you have, and see that the coming generations are in no way inferior to them.

Stanley Baldwin

It may have been a magnificent demonstration of the solidarity of labour, but it was at the same time a most pathetic evidence of the failure of all of us to live and work together for the good of all. I recognize the courage that it took on the part of the leaders who had taken a false step to recede from that position unconditionally...It took a great deal more courage than it takes their critics now, who are blaming them for not going straight on, whatever happened. But if that strike showed solidarity, sympathy with the miners-whatever you like-it showed something else far greater. It proved the stability of the whole fabric of our own country, and to the amazement of the world not a shot was fired. We were saved by common sense and the good temper of our own people.

Stanley Baldwin

September of the year 490 B.C. was to my mind a more cardinal moment of fate for Europe than August 1914. Western civilization...was saved in its infancy at Marathon, and ten years later by Leonidas and by the men of Salamis...had it not been for that decade there would have been nothing to prevent Eastern Europe being orientalized and the ultimate fight for the hegemony of Europe would have been left to the Persians and the Carthaginians. But for the Greeks there would have been no civilization as we know it, and we should all have been dark-skinned people with long noses...England is the natural home of liberty and free institutions, and in her endeavour to secure these blessings for the world no country ought to be quicker than she in acknowledging her debt to Hellas.

Stanley Baldwin

I always dreaded Roosevelt's experiments and I think there will be an appalling mess up in America in a few months.

Stanley Baldwin