"Organisation of social insurance should be treated as one part only of a comprehensive policy of social progress. Social insurance fully developed may provide income security; it is an attack upon Want. But Want is one only of five giants on the road of reconstruction and in some ways the easiest to attack. The others are Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness."

“Social security must be achieved by co-operation between the State and the individual. The State should offer security for service and contribution. The State in organising security should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility; in establishing a national minimum, it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than that minimum for himself and his family.”

“Spartacus Educational profiles on William Beveridge and The Beveridge Report”

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

“Executive Summary" of the 300-page Beveridge Report”

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

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