David Lloyd George

"He is nothing if not a Radical yet circumstances have made him appear as the leader of the right wing of the party—of the "bad Liberals". I put it to him that he had really nothing in common with these people and that the only course open to him was to lead the Radicals. That is what he wants to do, but meanwhile his supporters in the party are on the Right and his opponents on the Left. Asquith who is really a Whig is accepted as a better Liberal than he."

"Lloyd George had a passion to win the war which none of the other members of the Cabinet seemed even to understand."

"He could talk about the world history of his own time and about the future with a beautiful detachment. I have always remembered one night in the great drawing-room of the Antibes hotel.... L.G. was talking of his place in history. Of how he would be regarded mainly as one of those who tried to soften the class-struggle. And people who wanted the class-struggle naked would come down against him, and others would be for. He would get some attention for his part in the Great War — the 1914-1918 war (this conversation took place in 1938). But nothing of that counted much, L.G. was saying, against the great movements in history. None of our struggles mattered much, wars or revolutions or what you will, as compared with the sheer biological and geographical facts. Whatever happened, in two hundred years, perhaps sooner, the balance of the world would have changed. The industrialization of Russia was taking place: India would follow: perhaps China, within a hundred years.... Whatever Government presided over the operations, these changes would make our local concerns look no more significant than the Wars of the Roses."

"The most amazing thing about D. since he went out of Office is his gradual conquest of Labour. At first they had a regular system of howling him down, and boasted that they would break his authority in the House... But gradually the interruptions became less frequent, & their attitude more friendly, as they saw that he was really the same D. and prepared to fight for the underdog... Now he speaks almost as the Leader of the Opposition, with the Labour & Liberal benches around him, the former hanging on his words and loud in their praises. The other day after a similar performance, Kirkwood and Jack Jones said in the Lobby that he was the real leader of the Labour Party."

"The Labour people are pleased with him. He has proved more of a friend to them than Ramsay MacDonald, who got cold feet... When D. spoke in the House the first week of the [general] strike, the Labour people cheered him. Hartshorn overheard Ramsay MacDonald say to those next to him, "There they go, b..... fools, cheering him again." The Labour Party have been getting more and more friendly to D. all the session... D.'s idea is to go definitely towards the Left, and gradually to co-ordinate and consolidate all the progressive forces in the country, against the Conservative and reactionary forces."

"At Geneva other countries would have agreed not to use aeroplanes for bombing purposes, but we insisted on reserving the right, as D. puts it, to bomb niggers! Whereupon the whole thing fell through, & we add 5 millions to our air armaments expenditure."

"In the long retrospect of time he is likely to be seen as the greatest British statesman of the twentieth century and perhaps the greatest Prime Minister of all time... Only the other day an inquiry among Labour MPs revealed that more of them had drawn their inspiration from Lloyd George than ever from Keir Hardie."

"The greatest prime minister of the century."

"Man mag Deutschland seiner Kolonien berauben, seine Rüstung auf eine bloße Polizeitruppe und seine Flotte auf die Stärke einer Macht fünften Ranges herabdrücken; dennoch wird Deutschland zuletzt, wenn es das Gefühl hat, dass es im Frieden von 1919 ungerecht behandelt worden ist, Mittel finden, um seine Überwinder zur Rückerstattung zu zwingen."

""Ich habe jetzt den berühmten deutschen Führer gesehen und auch etliches von dem großen Wechsel, den er herbeigeführt hat. Was immer man von seinen Methoden halten mag"

"Ich weiss, was man zum Kriegführen braucht! Glauben Sie mir, Deutschland ist nicht dazu imstande"