David Lloyd George Quotes

I have never dealt with people who have so little political sagacity as the Turks.

Today's appeasers are worse than Neville Chamberlain: Chamberlain didn't have himself as an example

We had to avoid wounding Austria too severely; we had to avoid leaving behind in her any unnecessary bitterness of feeling or desire for revenge; we ought rather to reserve the possibility of becoming friends again with our adversary of the moment, and in any case to regard the Austrian state as a piece on the European chessboard and the renewal of friendly relations as a move open to us. If Austria were severely injured, she would become the ally of France and of every other opponent of ours; she would even sacrifice her anti-Russian interests for the sake of revenge on Prussia.

[George W.] Bush is the only force of evil in the world that liberals haven’t wanted to appease.

Douglas, Douglas, you would make Neville Chamberlain look like a warmonger

My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is peace for our time... Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.

Most foreign policies that history has marked highly, in whatever country, have been originated by leaders who were opposed by experts.

Unilateral preemption should not in any way be the model for how we conduct international relations.

Britain, along with the U.S.A., is war weary, and after the travesty of Iraq and Afghanistan, has grave misgivings in any future involvement in the Middle East. The ghost of Tony Blair and his single-minded determination to attack Iraq, at any cost, has cast a long shadow over British politics. The British public have a long collective memory.

It's not a choice between war and peace. It's a choice between war and endless war. It's not appeasement. I think it's better even to call it American self-interest.

The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.

The Americans have taken the course of confrontation and do not assess their own steps critically at all.

Our foreign policy has been inspired by two simple principles: the determination to place France's interests above all others, and the conviction that France has no greater interest than that of peace.

Clearly, for France in her present position, intelligent activity consists of practicing a policy of entente with Germany in order to survive

You'd make a great Secretary of State because State Department personnel don't answer questions completely either.

World politics is not a kindergarten.

Foreign policy is too important to be left up to foreign service officers.

The foreign policy adopted by our government is to do justice to all, and to submit to wrong by none.

[Commenting on foreign policy:] The Best politics is no politics.

Would it not be worthwhile to pause a moment before we commit ourselves to war at the pleasure of other nations in whose councils we shall have but one vote?

If I am called an appeaser because I oppose the country’s entry into the present war, I gladly accept the title.

The art of foreign policy is to help guide the inevitable.

The interest of connected nations cannot be entirely reconciled, nor their separate wishes be gratified. Nations must often be reduced to compound with evils, and at last to make such sacrifices as are necessarily accompanied with mortification and regret; but it is for political wisdom to encounter and reconcile men to these evils, to proclaim aloud that on these occasions nothing has happened at variance with the common necessities of our imperfect state. The misfortune is, that nations can never submit to the circumstances of their situation in time, or with any grace or good humor.

Our foreign policy has from the beginning endeavored to take into account the realities and to work accordingly, But it has never dropped from its high moral ideals; it wanted to be and, I think it really and truly was, idealistic and founded entirely upon moral principles

[To Americans] diplomacy means all the wicked devices of the Old World, spheres of influence, balances of power, secret treaties, triple alliances, and, during the interwar period, appeasement of Fascism.