Neville Chamberlain: Quotes about people

“We are not sufficiently advanced to reveal our ideas to the public, but of course we cannot deny the general charge of rearmament and no doubt if we try to keep our ideas secret till after the election, we should either fail, or if we succeeded, lay ourselves open to the far more damaging accusation that we had deliberately deceived the people…I have therefore suggested that we should take the bold course of actually appealing to the country on a defence programme, thus turning the Labour party's dishonest weapon into a boomerang.”

Neville Chamberlain

Diary entry (2 August 1935), quoted in Maurice Cowling, The Impact of Hitler. British Politics and British Policy. 1933-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), p. 92.
Chancellor of the Exchequer
Context: The Labour Party, obviously intends to fasten upon our backs the accusation of being 'warmongers' and they are suggesting that we have 'hush hush' plans for rearmament which we are concealing from the people. As a matter of fact we are working on plans for rearmament at an early date for the situation in Europe is most alarming... We are not sufficiently advanced to reveal our ideas to the public, but of course we cannot deny the general charge of rearmament and no doubt if we try to keep our ideas secret till after the election, we should either fail, or if we succeeded, lay ourselves open to the far more damaging accusation that we had deliberately deceived the people... I have therefore suggested that we should take the bold course of actually appealing to the country on a defence programme, thus turning the Labour party's dishonest weapon into a boomerang.

People , Secret , Idea , Country

“We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.”

Neville Chamberlain

Speech at Heston Airport (30 September 1938), quoted in The Times (1 October 1938) Oxford Book of Modern Quotes http://hudsoncress.org/html/library/dictionaries/The%20Oxford%20Dictionary%20of%20Modern%20Quotations.pdf(pdf)
Prime Minister
Context: This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine.... We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.

War , People , Night

“There was something else in the example of my father's life which impressed me very deeply when I was a young man, and which has greatly influenced me since I took up a public career. I suppose most people think of him as a great Colonial Secretary and tariff reformer, but before he ever went to the Colonial Office he was a great social reformer, and it was my observance of his deep sympathy with the working classes and his intense desire to better their lot which inspired me with an ambition to do something in my turn to afford better help to the working people and better opportunities for the enjoyment of life.”

Neville Chamberlain

Speech in the Albert Hall, London (12 May 1938), quoted in The Times (13 May 1938), p. 11.
Prime Minister

Life , People , Thinking , Help

“How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing. It seems still more impossible that a quarrel which has already been settled in principle should be the subject of war.”

Neville Chamberlain

Broadcast (27 September 1938), quoted in "Prime Minister on the Issues", The Times (28 September 1938), p. 10
Referring to the Czechoslovakia crisis
Prime Minister

War , People , Country

“Give us another 3 or 4 months of production, not more hampered than it is at present, and we shall have something over, with which we can make ourselves disagreeable in many ways, and many places. We could perhaps take a stronger line with Japan then, even though we still got no help from the U. S. A. …People ask me how we are going to win this war. I suppose it is a very natural question, but I don't think the time has come to answer it. We must just go on fighting as hard as we can, in the belief that some time—perhaps sooner than we think—the other side will crack.”

Neville Chamberlain

Letter to his sister (14 July 1940), quoted in Keith Feiling, Neville Chamberlain (London: Macmillan, 1946), p. 449.
Post-Prime Ministerial

War , People , Way , Question

“I would like to testify that you did more than any former British Statesman to make a true friendship between the peoples of our two countries possible, and, if the task has not been completed, that it has not been for want of goodwill on your part. I hope that you may still be able to work for, and that we may both be spared to see, the realisation of our dreams,—to see our two peoples living side by side with a deep neighbourly sense of their value one to another, and with a friendship which will make possible whole-hearted co-operation between them in all matters of common interest.”

Neville Chamberlain

Eamon de Valera to Chamberlain (15 May 1940), quoted in Keith Feiling, Neville Chamberlain (London: Macmillan, 1946), p. 311.
About

Friendship , People , Dreams , Hope

“No doubt the Jews aren't a lovable people; I don't care about them myself; but that is not sufficient to explain the Pogrom.”

Neville Chamberlain

Letter to a sister, Chamberlain Papers (30 July 1939)
Prime Minister

People

“No conqueror returning from a victory on the battlefield has come home adorned with nobler laurels than M and people alike have shown by the manner of their reception their sense of his achievement.”

Neville Chamberlain

"A New Dawn", The Times, 1 October 1938; opening words of the leader on the Munich Agreement.
About

People , Home , Sense , Victory

“It now only remains for us to set our teeth and to enter upon this struggle, which we ourselves earnestly endeavoured to avoid, with determination to see it through to the end. We shall enter it with a clear conscience, with the support of the Dominions and the British Empire, and the moral approval of the greater part of the world. We have no quarrel with the German people, except that they allow themselves to be governed by a Nazi Government. As long as that Government exists and pursues the methods it has so persistently followed during the last two years, there will be no peace in Europe. We shall merely pass from one crisis to another, and see one country after another attacked by methods which have now become familiar to us in their sickening technique. We are resolved that these methods must come to an end. If out of the struggle we again re-establish in the world the rules of good faith and the renunciation of force, why, then even the sacrifices that will be entailed upon us will find their fullest justification.”

Neville Chamberlain

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1939/sep/01/british-note-to-germany in the House of Commons (1 September 1939) on the British ultimatum to Germany
Prime Minister

People , World , Peace , Faith

“This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine.... We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.”

Neville Chamberlain

Speech at Heston Airport after his return from Munich (30 September 1938), quoted in The Times (1 October 1938) Oxford Book of Modern Quotes http://hudsoncress.org/html/library/dictionaries/The%20Oxford%20Dictionary%20of%20Modern%20Quotations.pdf(pdf)
Prime Minister

War , People , Night

“I am myself a man of peace to the depths of my soul. Armed conflict between nations is a nightmare to me; but if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it must be resisted. Under such a domination, life for people who believe in liberty would not be worth living: but war is a fearful thing, and we must be very clear, before we embark on it, that it is really the great issues that are at stake.”

Neville Chamberlain

Broadcast (27 September 1938), quoted in Keith Feiling, Neville Chamberlain (London: Macmillan, 1946), p. 372
Prime Minister

Life , Soul , Peace , War

“There are some people who do not desire to draw any conclusions at all. I see, for instance, the other day that the president of the League of Nations Union issued a circular to its members in which he...urged them to commence a campaign of pressure upon members of Parliament and members of the Government with the idea that if we were to pursue the policy of sanctions and even to intensify it, it was still possible to preserve the independence of Abyssinia. That seems to me the very midsummer of madness.”

Neville Chamberlain

Speech to the 1900 Club at Grosvenor House, London (10 June 1936) on the Italo-Abyssinian War, quoted in The Times (11 June 1936), p. 10
Chancellor of the Exchequer

Idea , Drawing , Madness , People

“I believe the persecution arose out of two motives: a desire to rob the Jews of their money and a jealously of their superior cleverness. No doubt Jews aren't a lovable people; I don't care about them myself; but that is not sufficient to explain the Pogrom.”

Neville Chamberlain

Letter to a sister on the persecution of Jews in Germany (30 July 1939), quoted in Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust: The Jewish Tragedy (HarperCollins, 1989), p. 81
Prime Minister

Money , Motivation , People

“A lot of people seem to me to be losing their heads, and talking and thinking as though Munich had made war more, instead of less, imminent.”

Neville Chamberlain

Statement (end of October 1938), quoted in Keith Feiling, Neville Chamberlain (1946; 1970), p. 386
Prime Minister

Thinking , War , People