“Never have I had such great minds around me—Smuts, Balfour, Bonar Law…and Curzon. Curzon was perhaps not a great man, but he was a supreme Civil Servant. Compared to these men, the front benches of today are pigmies.”

— David Lloyd George

Quoted in Harold Nicolson's diary entry (6 July 1936), quoted in Nigel Nicolson (ed.), Harold Nicolson: Diaries and Letters. 1930-1939 (London: Collins, 1966), p. 268.
Later life

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Never have I had such great minds around me—Smuts, Balfour, Bonar Law…and Curzon. Curzon was perhaps not a great man, b…" by David Lloyd George?

David Lloyd George 172

Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1863–1945

Related quotes

“"All civilization", said Lord Curzon, quoting Renan, "all civilization has been the work of aristocracies"…. It would be much more true to say "The upkeep of aristocracies has been the hard work of all civilizations".”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The People's Rights [1909] (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), pp. 53-54
Early career years (1898–1929)

“He was one of the most supremely stupid men I have ever met. He taught me a great deal.”

John Fowles book The Magus

Source: The Magus

“Thirty-five years ago he and I were young men in London, with different outlooks, with different social surroundings, with different ideas about our careers, but an intimacy sprung up which was never checked…. Three things distinguished him then, as they did later: unflinching courage, a wide devotion to the State which always looked beyond himself, and an unshakable resolution when he had made up his mind. With these qualities Lord Curzon went to India as Viceroy. It is not necessary to agree about everything in his policy in order to appreciate how great an administrator Lord Curzon was there…. I know, not by his testimony but by the testimony of others, that by his courage and his determination to see justice done he redressed many an individual evil and put right much that a man of less energy and tenacity of purpose than himself could not have put right…. He was a man in a high sense of the word…. We shall look back upon his figure, we shall look back upon it as a figure which was that of a great Englishman, and we shall look back upon that figure with pride in our race.”

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925) British politician

Lord Haldane in the House of Lords http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1925/mar/23/tribute-to-the-late-lord-curzon (23 March 1925).
About Curzon

“Curzon is an intolerable person to do business with—pompous, dictatorial and outrageously conceited…. Really he is an intolerable person, pig-headed, pompous and vindictive too! Yet an able, strong man with it all.”

George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925) British politician

Maurice Hankey's diary entry (12 May 1916), quoted in Stephen Roskill, Hankey, Man of Secrets: Volume I 1877-1919 (London: Collins, 1970), pp. 271-272.
About Curzon