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Stanley Baldwin Quotes
1867–1947 England
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley KG PC (3 August 1867 – 14 December 1947) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on three separate occasions (1923–24, 1924–29 and 1935–37).
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True to our traditions, we have avoided all extremes. We have steered clear of fascism, communism, dictatorship, and we have shown the world that democratic government, constitutional methods and ordered liberty are not inconsistent with progress and prosperity.
Rightly or wrongly we have done with the old India; there's a new one afoot and we must make the best of it.
We don't know what Germany really intends. We do know and have long known that France is pacific, and is not a potential enemy. We cannot say that about Germany.
Dogmatism is the prerogative of youth.
I have seldom spoken with greater regret, for my lips are not yet unsealed. Were these troubles over I would make a case, and I guarantee that not a man would go into the Lobby against us.
"Give peace in our time, O Lord."
Democracy can rise to great heights; it can also sink to great depths. It is for us so to conduct ourselves, and so to educate our own people, that we may achieve the heights and avoid the depths.
Whatever failures may have come to parliamentary government in countries which have not those traditions, and where it is not a natural growth, that is no proof that parliamentary government has failed.
O how I long for the days when, if the Japs were cheeky, we showed them the guns of the China Squadron, and no more was heard.
Yes, it was a success. I know it. It was almost wholly unprepared. I had a success, my dear Nicolson, at the moment I most needed it. Now is the time to go.
If there be one thing certain, to my mind it is this. That if the people of this country in great numbers were to become adherents of either Communism or Fascism there could only be one end to it. And that one end would be civil war.
It proved the stability of the whole fabric of our own country, and to the amazement of the world not a shot was fired. We were saved by common sense and the good temper of our own people.
In the Protestant doctrine of the infinite value of the individual soul, on the one hand, and in the assembling together of the brethren in the church congregation, on the other, you have the seed-bed of modern democracy.
I would say that we are the only defenders left of liberty in a world of Fascists. ... these fascists and communists are the successors today of the wars of the sects.
There is nowhere in the world, I believe, a higher standard of commercial honour than that which prevails in this country. And the same is true of our Courts of Law, which enjoy a world-wide prestige.
The best way in which you can develop a true national feeling and put your own country in the pride of place which belongs to her is to do it in communion with other nations and with the sole object of improving the world at large.
I think that our experience in business had taught us that, as a matter of fact, there are no such things as supermen, and that we should have to rely on the innate common-sense, integrity, courage and faith of the common men and women of this country if we were to make good.
There is no doubt that to our people, whether they live on the sea-coast, in the great towns, or inland, the Royal Navy is in some subtle way the repository of the spirit and the tradition of our nation.
I will not be responsible for the conduct of any Government in this country at this present time, if I am not given power to remedy the deficiencies which have accrued in our defensive services since the War.
Let us never forget this; since the day of the air, the old frontiers are gone. When you think of the defence of England you no longer think of the chalk cliffs of Dover; you think of the Rhine. That is where our frontier lies.
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