The trouble in modern democracy is that men do not approach to leadership until they have lost the desire to lead anyone.

- William Beveridge

Organisation of social insurance should be treated as one part only of a comprehensive policy of social progress. Social insurance fully developed ma…

- William Beveridge

Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens.

- William Beveridge

Want is one only of five giants on the road of reconstruction; the others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, and Idleness.

- William Beveridge

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

Unemployment is like a headache or a high temperature - unpleasant and exhausting but not carrying in itself any explanation of its cause.

- William Beveridge

Scratch a pessimist and you will often find a defender of privilege.

- William Beveridge

The state is or can be master of money, but in a free society it is master of very little else.

- William Beveridge

The State in organising security should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility, in establishing a national minimum it should leave room an…

- William Beveridge