"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 the minimum for himself and his family."
— William Beveridge (1879-1963)
"Want is one only of five giants on the road of reconstruction; the others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness."
— William Beveridge (1879-1963)
"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 (1879-1963)
"The state is or can be master of money, but in a free society it is master of very little else."
— William Beveridge (1879-1963)
"Unemployment is like a headache or a high temperature - unpleasant and exhausting but not carrying in itself any explanation of its cause."
— William Beveridge (1879-1963)
"Scratch a pessimist and you will often find a defender of privilege."
— William Beveridge (1879-1963)
"The trouble in modern democracy is that men do not approach to leadership until they have lost the desire to lead anyone."
— William Beveridge (1879-1963)
"No one believes an hypothesis except its originator but everyone believes an experiment except the experimenter."
— William Beveridge (1879-1963)
"The human mind likes a strange idea as little as the body likes a strange protein and resists it with a similar energy."
— William Beveridge (1879-1963)
"There is a very important distinction between a critical attitude of mind (or critical faculty) and a sceptical attitude."
— William Beveridge (1879-1963)