Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook

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Quotes

They are a crowd of little Englanders, anti-Navy and Army fellows, who agitate for universal peace based on the love of God. It is a very devout policy, but unfortunately God is on the side of the big warships.
- Statement on the British Radicals (1911), quoted in A. J. P. Taylor, Beaverbrook (1972), p. 65

Men are not really born either hopelessly idle, or preternaturally industrious. They may move in one direction or the other as will or circumstances dictate, but it is open to any man to work.
- Success (1921)

George Sylvester Viereck: Do you care much for money or for power?
Beaverbrook: For neither in itself. I like activity, to wrestle with life and to beat it, to dare and win. I made my first million before I was thirty.
Viereck: But having achieved so much, what keeps you going? Why do you spend yourself, your vitality, in politics and in business?
Beaverbrook: To escape boredom.
- Interview in May 1929 published in the New York American in June 1930, quoted in A. J. P. Taylor, Beaverbrook (1972), p. 244

Evelyn Wrench: What is the biggest thing you have ever done?
Beaverbrook: The destruction of the Asquith Government which was brought about by an honest intrigue. If the Asquith Government had gone on, the country would have gone down.
- Interview (1934), quoted in A. J. P. Taylor, Beaverbrook (1972), p. 102

Our cock won't fight.
- To Winston Churchill during the Abdication crisis, 1936, quoted in Francis Donaldson, Edward VIII, ch.22

The Daily Express is the first newspaper to serve every class in the community, rich and poor, high and low, barbarian, Scythian, bond and free.
- Article in the Daily Express (5 November 1937), quoted in A. J. P. Taylor, Beaverbrook (1972), p. 376

Our policy demands for each of us social equality and equal opportunity... Equal educational facilities, the same opportunities, and a fair start for all together.
And the joy of living must not be restricted, limited or confined by any measures whatsoever. The Express is allied to the group of human beings who like to have a good time.
- Article in the Daily Express (8 March 1938), quoted in A. J. P. Taylor, Beaverbrook (1972), p. 376

Peter, do you keep a diary? ... Well, if you had a diary, I would tell you to record in it that this day our country has won a victory that will be recorded in the annals of history in the same terms as Trafalgar or Waterloo are recorded.
- Remarks to Peter Howard during the Battle of Britain (15 September 1940), quoted in Peter Howard, Beaverbrook: A Study of Max The Unknown (1964), pp. 134-135

Acts of generosity such as yours are rare and remarkable. When I think of the behaviour of our Liberal friends—men who owe us not only their political reputation but their political salvation and contrast it with what you have done I can only say I am stunned. Bonar Law always said you were the best friend in the world and he was right.
- Margot Asquith to Beaverbrook after he had contributed £1,000 to an annual endowment for H. H. Asquith, who was poorly off (30 July 1927), quoted in A. J. P. Taylor, Beaverbrook (1972), p. 236

But there are many other people to whom it will be easy to talk. Chief among these is Beaverbrook. He is a magnet to all young men, and I warn you that if you talk to him no good will come of it.
Beware of flattery.
- Clement Attlee, speech to junior Labour ministers (June 1945), quoted in A. J. P. Taylor, Beaverbrook (1972), p. 446

I refer to the appointment of Lord Beaverbrook to the post of Minister of Aircraft Production. The effect of this appointment can only be described as magical, and thereafter the supply situation improved to such a degree that the heavy aircraft wastage which was later incurred during the "Battle of Britain" ceased to be the primary danger, its place being taken by the difficulty of producing trained fighter pilots in adequate numbers.
- Hugh Dowding, despatch on the Battle of Britain (1941), quoted in Andy Saunders, Dowding's Despatch: The 1941 Battle of Britain Narrative Examined and Explained (2021), p. 50

The country owes as much to Beaverbrook for the Battle of Britain as it does to me. Without his drive behind me I could not have carried on during the battle.
- Hugh Dowding, remarks to Lord Templewood, recorded in Templewood to Beaverbrook (15 May 1945), quoted in A. J. P. Taylor, Beaverbrook (1972), p. 415

But to the man who prevented catastrophe on the material plane I have seen no public tribute. I refer, of course, to Lord Beaverbrook, whose dynamic irruption into the field of aircraft production saved what appeared in May, 1940, to be a black situation indeed. We had the organization, we had the men, and we had the spirit which could bring us victory in the air, but we had not the supply of machines necessary to withstand the drain of continuous battle. Lord Beaverbrook gave us those machines, and I do not believe that I exaggerate when I say that no other man in England could have done so.
- Hugh Dowding, letter to The Times (1 June 1945), p. 5

I really do not like what you say about Aitken. He is my most intimate friend. I know him as well as I know anyone and in my belief he is as honourable a man as I am and one of the ablest men I know.
- Bonar Law to Leopold Maxse (December 1916), quoted in A. J. P. Taylor, Beaverbrook (1972), p. 123

The Royal Air Force won the Battle of Britain... It would never have had the chance to do so but for the activities of one man—and that man was Lord Beaverbrook.
- Archibald Rowlands, quoted in A. J. P. Taylor, Beaverbrook (1972), p. 415

If Max gets to Heaven he won't last long. He will be chucked out for trying to pull off a merger between Heaven and Hell...after having secured a controlling interest in key subsidiary companies in both places, of course.
- H. G. Wells, quoted in A. J. P. Taylor, Beaverbrook (1972), p. 164

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Max Aitken, 1st Baron Beaverbrook