Winston Churchill quotes:

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  • All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

  • Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

  • Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

  • Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

  • My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.

  • Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong - these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.

  • I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

  • Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.

  • A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

  • To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

  • There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.

  • Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.

  • Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities... because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

  • If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.

  • For good or for ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept a subordinate rank.

  • It was the nation and the race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion's heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.

  • Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.

  • In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.

  • For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

  • The British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst.

  • I have been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who get drunk.

  • Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.

  • History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

  • We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed to forget the feuds of a thousand years.

  • Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.

  • Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.

  • History is written by the victors.

  • We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.

  • Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

  • I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting.

  • War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can.

  • No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.

  • When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.

  • Baldwin thought Europe was a bore, and Chamberlain thought it was only a greater Birmingham.

  • Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

  • Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it.

  • Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

  • This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.

  • A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.

  • Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

  • The short words are best, and the old words are the best of all.

  • Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.

  • My wife and I tried two or three times in the last 40 years to have breakfast together, but it was so disagreeable we had to stop.

  • I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.

  • Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

  • The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

  • Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

  • Never give in - never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.

  • It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.

  • However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.

  • I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

  • No comment' is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again.

  • There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.

  • I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.

  • It is a fine game to play - the game of politics - and it is well worth waiting for a good hand before really plunging.

  • It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.

  • Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.

  • When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.

  • Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.

  • We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.

  • Never, never, never give up.

  • Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself, believe.

  • Nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get in the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge, and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man who knows where it hurts is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialized character."

  • Projects undreamed of by past generations will absorb our immediate descendants, comforts, activities, amenities, pleasures will crowd upon them, but their hearts will ache and their lives will be barren, if they have not a vision above material things."

  • This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this Island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warriors"

  • Perfect solutions of our difficulties are not to be looked for in an imperfect world.

  • Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.

  • Are you an action-oriented, take-charge person interested in exciting new challenges? As director of a major public-sector organization, you will manage a large armed division and interface with other senior executives in a team-oriented, multinational initiative in the global marketplace. Successful candidate will have above-average oral-presentation skills

  • [Should Britain fail, then the entire world would] sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister ... by the lights of perverted science.

  • Decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

  • In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.

  • We are with Europe but not of it. We are linked, not combined. We are interested and associated, not absorbed. And should European statesmen address us in the words that were used of old - Shall I speak for thee to the King or the Captain of the Host? - we should reply with the Shunamite woman: "Nay sir, for we dwell among our own people".

  • What is adequacy? Adequacy is no standard at all.

  • It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.

  • Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.

  • The power of an air force is terrific when there is nothing to oppose it.

  • The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it. The fighters are our salvation, but the bombers alone provide the means of victory.

  • Not to have an adequate air force in the present state of the world is to compromise the foundations of national freedom and independence.

  • May it not also be that the cause of civilization itself will be defended by the skill and devotion of a few thousand airmen? There never has been, I suppose, in all the world, in all the history of war, such an opportunity for youth. The Knights of the Round Table, the Crusaders, all fall back into the past.

  • If the Almighty were to rebuild the world and asked me for advice, I would have English Channels round every country. And the atmosphere would be such that anything which attempted to fly would be set on fire.

  • We sit in calm, airy, silent rooms opening upon sunlit and embowered lawns, not a sound except of summer and of husbandry disturbs the peace; but seven million men, any ten thousand of whom could have annihilated the ancient armies, are in ceaseless battle from the Alps to the Ocean.

  • I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place.

  • I am sorry to have made such a long speech, but I did not have time to write a shorter one.

  • You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.

  • Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind.

  • A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.

  • I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents.

  • It may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a state in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation.

  • The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks constitutes a national and race danger which is impossible to exaggerate. I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed before another year has passed.

  • I am in favor of deliberately spreading methodically prepared bacteria among people and animals -- mildew ... to destroy the harvests, anthrax to destroy horses and livestock, and the plague, in order to kill not only entire armies, but also the inhabitants of large regions.

  • Appeasement is feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last.

  • We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.

  • If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.

  • Really I feel less keen about the Army every day. I think the Church would suit me better.

  • A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

  • Renown awaits the commander who first restores artillery to its prime importance on the battlefield.

  • Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

  • Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.

  • The Dark Ages may return-the Stone Age may return on the gleaming wings of Science; and what might now shower immeasureable material blessings upon mankind may even bring about its total destruction. Beware! I say. Time may be short. Referring to the discovery of atomic energy.

  • You may take the most gallant sailor, the most intrepid airman, or the most audacious soldier, put them at a table together- what do you get? The sum of their fears.

  • The first quality that is needed is audacity.

  • The United States stands at the pinnacle of world power. This is a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with primacy in power is joined an awe-inspiring accountability for the future.

  • Today I may way before an awestruck world; I am still master of my fate. I am still captain of my soul.

  • There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.

  • The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

  • You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.

  • [The Balkans] produce more history than they can consume.

  • We have taken a grave and hazardous decision to sustain the Greeks and try to make a Balkan Front.

  • Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.

  • I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.

  • The most beautiful voice in the world is that of an educated Southern woman.

  • The Government of India had imprisoned Mr. Gandhi and they had been sitting outside his cell door begging him to help them out of their difficulties.

  • If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another.

  • There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away. The British people can face peril or misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy, but they bitterly resent being deceived or finding that those responsible for their affairs are themselves dwelling in a fool's paradise.

  • It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.

  • Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.

  • We are not meant to find peace in this world. The spirit of life cannot exist without effort. Destroy the rivalries of man and nations and you will have destroyed all that makes for betterment and progress on Earth.

  • Our dog chases people on a bike. We've had to take it off him.

  • We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.

  • The game of life does not proceed like a mathematical calculation on the principle that two and two make four. Sometimes they make five, or minus four, and sometimes the blackboard topples over in the middle of the sum and the pedagogue is left with a black eye.

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