Ernest Bevin quotes

Ernest Bevin was a prominent British public servant and trade union leader. As Foreign Secretary after World War II, he played a key role in shaping Britain’s postwar foreign policy and founding NATO. He is remembered for his dedication to social justice, international cooperation, and workers’ rights. Here are 21 of his quotes:

My policy is to be able to take a ticket at Victoria station and go anywhere I damn well please!

Ernest Bevin

There should be a study of a house directly elected by the people of the world to whom the nations are accountable.

Ernest Bevin

It is placing the Executive and the Movement in an absolutely wrong position to be taking your conscience round from body to body asking to be told what you ought to do with it.

Ernest Bevin

If the workers see themselves faced with defeat through starvation, they will prefer to go down fighting rather than fainting - and whether or not we leaders agree.

Ernest Bevin

That won't do at all.. we've got to have this.. I don't mind for myself, but I don't want any other Foreign Secretary of this country to be talked to or at by a Secretary of State in the United States as I have just had in my discussions with Mr Byrnes. We've got to have this thing over here whatever it costs.. We've got to have the bloody Union Jack on top of it.

Ernest Bevin

I think that in the little argument going on now in New York and the differences that have arisen there are emerging three very fundamental principles. One is that it is improper to negotiate or attempt to negotiate or attempt to gain concessions by a great Power out of a little Power by means of occupying that country with your forces. It is the tradition - and I am not saying of one or other country only they have done it - but it is nineteenth-century imperialism that really must be left behind, and I believe that a solution will be found and the principle accepted that those of us who represent the great Powers will not do that.

Ernest Bevin

We need 720,000 men continuously employed in this industry... This is where you boys come in... [O]ur fighting men will not be able to achieve their purpose unless we get an adequate supply of coal.

Ernest Bevin

Unintelligent people always look for a scapegoat.

Ernest Bevin

Ernest Bevin had many of the strongest characteristics of the English race. His manliness, his common sense, his rough simplicity, sturdiness and kind heart, easy geniality and generosity, all are qualities which we who live in the southern part of this famous island regard with admiration.

Ernest Bevin

If anyone asks me who was responsible for the British policy leading up to the war, I should, as a Labour man myself, make a confession and say: "All of us". We refused absolutely to face the facts. When the issue came of arming or rearming millions of people in this country... we refused to face the real issue at a critical moment. But what is the good of blaming anybody? We cannot make our action retrospective whatever we do. We have to start from now and try to do the best we can.

Ernest Bevin

So long as I have any power at all I will never be a party to treating the Army in the future as it has been treated in the past. They broke up in peace-time the very foundations of the Army structure, and expected to build it up during war-time with the enemy at the gates.

Ernest Bevin

The kind of middle-class mentality which actuates both those responsible for strategy and government has little knowledge of the new psychology and organizing ability of the totalitarian States. The forces we are fighting are governed neither by the old strategy nor follow the old tactics.

Ernest Bevin

If I may again refer to the different political concepts, there is, I think rather unfortunately, running through all the speeches and writings of our Soviet friends the theory that they alone represent the workers - that they alone are democratic.

Ernest Bevin

The fact of it is that all of us agreed to save 6d. in the Income Tax by breaking up the Army in peace-time and not having it prepared when war broke out...I will never be a party to it again.

Ernest Bevin

I come now to the question of diplomatic personnel. ... It is said that I am admitting to the service Eton and Harrow. I am not one of those who decry Eton and Harrow. I was very glad of them in the Battle of Britain-by God, I was!-those fellows paid the price in the Royal Air Force on those fatal days. If the Universities are to be criticized, well, put up a vote of censure on Harold Laski, because it is the product of the Universities I have got to accept.

Ernest Bevin

They say Gladstone was at the Treasury from 1860 to 1930. I'm going to be Minister of Labour from 1940 to 1990.

Ernest Bevin

He is a powerful fellow, with a bull neck and a huge voice - a born leader...if there is trouble, mark my words! You will hear more of Bevin!

Ernest Bevin

From the day Hitler came to power, I have felt that the democratic countries would have to face war... I cannot see any way of stopping Hitler and the other dictators except by force.

Ernest Bevin