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.
“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
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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.
Minimalist
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.
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.
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.
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Wording“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.”
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Wording“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 ↗.
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Not a claimantArianna 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.
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Other credits in circulationBenjamin 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.
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The image itselfEarlier 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.
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/