23 quotes
The British Army should be a projectile to be fired by the British Navy.
Admiral 'Jacky' Fisher in Memories p.18 (1919)
We are in the presence of a European conflagration; can anybody set limits to the consequences that may arise out of it?
Speech in the British House of Commons (1914)
Poetry is the greatest literature, and pleasure in poetry is the greatest of literary pleasures. It is also the least easy to attain and there are some people who never do attain it.
Recreation (1919)
If her independence goes, the independence of Holland will follow.
Speech in the British House of Commons (1914)
It is sometimes said that this is a pleasure-seeking age. Whether it be a pleasure-seeking age or not, I doubt whether it is a pleasure-finding age.
Recreation (1919)
Colonel Roosevelt liked the song of the blackbird so much that he was almost indignant that he had not heard more of its reputation before.
Recreation (1919)
The most awful responsibility is resting upon the Government in deciding what to advise the House of Commons to do.
Speech in the British House of Commons (1914)
Today events move so rapidly that it is exceedingly difficult to state with technical accuracy the actual state of affairs, but it is clear that the peace of Europe cannot be preserved.
Speech in the British House of Commons (1914)
Had it not been for the Anglo-Russian agreement the Russians would either have interfered to keep the Shah on the throne or their troops would have been in Tehran long before this.
[The United States is like] a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.
[T]he real root of Liberalism is fairness.
Remarks to a friend (1909)
If there is one thing more than another that I have striven to secure during the last seven years it is that we should not incur any increase of Imperial liabilities.
Mr. Lloyd George is a colleague with whom I have always been on the best of terms personally, and the Budget raises the money required in a way which presses much less, I believe, upon the poorer classes than any alternative that could be devised.
Letter (1909)
The example would spread, and I am not without hope that one or more great European Powers would eventually make a similar agreement with us and the United States. The effect of such agreements on disarmament and the morale of international politics would be considerable.
When we are bored, when we are out of tune, when we have little worries, it clears our feelings and changes our mood if we can get in touch with the beauty of the natural world.
Recreation (1919)
A friend came to see me on one of the evenings of the last week — he thinks it was on Monday, August 3rd. We were standing at a window of my room in the Foreign Office. It was getting dusk, and the lamps were being lit in the space below... My friend recalls that I remarked on this with the words, "The lamps are going out all over Europe: we shall not see them lit again in our life-time."
Of all the joys of life which may fairly come under the head of recreation there is nothing more great, more refreshing, more beneficial in the widest sense of the word, than a real love of the beauty of the world...
Recreation (1919)
I happened to be impressed by his knowledge of natural history and literature and to have had first-hand evidence of both, but I gather from others that there were other fields of knowledge in which he was also remarkable.
Recreation (1919)
Books are the greatest and the most satisfactory of recreations. I mean the use of books for pleasure. Without books, without having acquired the power of reading for pleasure, none of us can be independent, but if we can read we have a sure defence against boredom in solitude.
Recreation (1919)
It is a grave matter that a treaty should be broken or arbitrarily set aside; it is still graver when the idea of the sanctity of treaties being the foundation of peace is considered so chimerical that no one who upholds it can be honest, and that resentment at the breach of a treaty must necessarily be pretence and hypocrisy. That all this is of bad augury for the future of Europe is certain.