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Who really said it

There Is No Greater Mistake than To Try To Leap an Abyss in Two Jumps

Written by David Lloyd George 1863–1945 · British Prime Minister 1916–1922
Verified In copyright

Lloyd George wrote this sentence in his War Memoirs, first published in 1933, in the chapter “Disintegration of the Liberal Party.” It is not an abstract maxim: it is his verdict on his own government’s handling of conscription, which Liberal opposition forced it to carry “in two steps.” We read the sentence in the scanned Boston edition of 1933 ↗ at p. 184, and Quote Investigator ↗ verified it on paper in the London first edition.

Last verified 24 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Verified quote & credit

“There Is No Greater Mistake than To Try To Leap an Abyss in Two Jumps” David Lloyd George, War Memoirs of David Lloyd George, 1915-1916 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1933), 184

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The estate of David Lloyd George; original publishers Ivor Nicholson & Watson (London) and Little, Brown (Boston)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of David Lloyd George — Welsh Liberal statesman · Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1916–1922. Theme: "There Is No Greater Mistake than To Try To Leap an Abyss in Two Jumps". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "There Is No Greater Mistake than To Try To Leap an Abyss in Two Jumps". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Work
War Memoirs of David Lloyd George
Chapter
Disintegration of the Liberal Party
Read by us
Boston: Little, Brown, 1933 (the 1915–1916 volume), p. 184
London first edition
Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1933 — Volume II, ch. XXIV, p. 740
1938 two-volume edition
Volume I, p. 445

They resented conscription, which had consequently to be carried in two steps. There is no greater mistake than to try to leap an abyss in two jumps. 1933

The sentence immediately follows its occasion. The “they” are Asquith’s own Liberal backbenchers, whose resistance forced conscription through in halves — which is what Lloyd George is calling the mistake.

Scanned first-year edition
Read the page in the 1933 printing
War Memoirs of David Lloyd George, 1915–1916 — the sentence at p. 184

How we verified this

  • We searched the full text of the scanned 1933 Boston edition ↗ and found the sentence verbatim on p. 184, in the paragraph about conscription being carried in two steps, under the running head “Disintegration of the Liberal Party.”
  • Quote Investigator ↗ independently verified the same passage on paper, citing the London first edition — War Memoirs of David Lloyd George, Volume II, ch. XXIV, p. 740 (Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1933).
  • Wikiquote sources it ↗ to the revised two-volume edition of 1938, Volume I, p. 445. The three page numbers are three editions of one book, not three claims — Wikiquote’s own note records that the six-volume set of 1933–36 was reissued in two volumes in 1938.
  • The image is older than Lloyd George and he did not claim it: QI ↗ documents a stag crossing “a deep chasm in two jumps” in the Chicago Times of 1873, and an Ambrose Bierce fable of a jackal trying “to cross the abyss by two leaps,” written for the London periodical Fun in 1872–73.
In copyright

The War Memoirs were first published in 1933. That is after the 1931 line quotle.info uses for United States public domain, so we treat the text as in copyright and quote only the short passage needed to establish the wording.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What people get wrong

The attribution is right. It is the wording and the ownership of the image that get mangled — and one name commonly attached to the saying belongs to someone who was quoting it correctly.

“The most dangerous thing in the world is to leap a chasm in two jumps” Paraphrase

This rewrite is credited to Lloyd George in Laurence J. Peter’s Peter’s Quotations (1977), per QI ↗. He wrote “no greater mistake,” not “most dangerous thing,” and “abyss,” not “chasm.”

“You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps” Paraphrase

Bennett Cerf printed this version under Lloyd George’s name in a 1960 newspaper column, and it is the form most often repeated since — QI ↗.

Arianna Huffington Popularizer, not author

Her 2010 book Third World America used the Cerf wording and credited it to “World War I-era British Prime Minister David Lloyd George” — an attribution QI ↗ shows is essentially correct. She is a well-known conduit for the line, not a claimed author of it.

Benjamin Disraeli, Winston Churchill, Václav Havel and others Unsupported

QI ↗ records the saying also being pinned on Disraeli, Churchill, Havel, Jeffrey Sachs, Walter Bagehot and Philip Noel-Baker, and being called variously a Greek, African, Chinese, Russian and American proverb. None of those has a source; Lloyd George’s does.

Earlier anonymous writers, and Ambrose Bierce Context

The metaphor predates the memoirs by sixty years — an 1873 Chicago Times item and Bierce’s fable of the jackal, per QI ↗. Lloyd George sharpened an existing figure of speech into a maxim; he did not invent the picture.

Lloyd George really did write this sentence, in these words. If you are quoting him, quote this version — and know that he was talking about conscription, not about business strategy.

Context

Why it mattered

The line is a confession disguised as an aphorism. Conscription in Britain arrived in two instalments in 1916 ↗ because Asquith’s Liberal backbenchers would not swallow it whole — and Lloyd George, writing seventeen years later as the man who had supplanted Asquith, is saying that the half-measure cost more than the whole one would have.

That is why the “abyss” matters and the later “chasm” rewrites lose something. An abyss has no far side you can see. The point is not that two jumps are slower; it is that the second jump never happens.

The point is not that two jumps are slower. It is that there is nothing to land on.

Read the full story

The sentence has had a long second life in management writing, where it is usually quoted to argue against incremental change — often in the Bennett Cerf wording, and often with a chasm. Both the venue and the wording drift from the original, which is what makes the page worth having: the attribution survives the journey intact while the sentence does not.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Courage Leadership Change

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

War memoirs of David Lloyd George, 1915–1916archive.org

The scanned 1933 Boston edition. The sentence is on p. 184; full text is searchable.
Quote Origin: There Is No Greater Mistake Than To Try To Leap an Abyss in Two Jumpsquoteinvestigator.com

QI’s investigation, tracing the metaphor to the 1870s and the maxim to the 1933 memoirs.
David Lloyd George — War Memoirs (1938)en.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote’s sourced entry, citing the revised two-volume edition, Volume I, p. 445.
David Lloyd Georgeen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the Prime Minister who wrote it, and of the 1916 conscription fight behind it.
Conscription in the United Kingdomen.wikipedia.org

The two 1916 Military Service Acts — the “two steps” the sentence is about.

The author

About David Lloyd George

David Lloyd George

1863–1945 · Welsh Liberal statesman · Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1916–1922

David Lloyd George was Chancellor of the Exchequer, then Minister of Munitions, then the wartime Prime Minister who displaced Asquith in December 1916. His six-volume War Memoirs (1933–36) are both a defence of his own conduct of the war and a sustained attack on the hesitancy he believed had prolonged it — which is the argument this sentence belongs to.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

David Lloyd George, War Memoirs of David Lloyd George, 1915–1916 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1933), 184. London first edition: War Memoirs of David Lloyd George, vol. 2 (London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1933), 740.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘There Is No Greater Mistake than To Try To Leap an Abyss in Two Jumps’?” Last verified 24 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/there-is-no-greater-mistake-than-to-try-to-leap-an-abyss-in/

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