Winston Churchill

Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is -- the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.

They are decided only to be undecided resolved to be irresolute adamant for drift solid for fluidity all-powerful to be impotent.

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

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

The power of man has grown in every sphere except over himself.

Give us the tools and we will finish the job.

If we can stand up to Hitler all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad sunlit uplands.

Without courage all virtues lose their meaning.

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.

Old expressions are the best and short ones even better

The Americans will always do the right thing... after they've exhausted all the alternatives.

We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be we shall fight on the beaches we shall fight on the landing grounds we shall fight in the fields and in the streets we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender.

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

I had no idea of the enormous and unquestionably helpful part that humbug plays in the social life of great peoples dwelling in a state of democratic freedom.

We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we were young. The young sow wild oats. The old grow sage.

No crime is so great as daring to excel.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

even the Almighty took seven.

One voyage to India is enough, the others are merely repletion

And you madam are ugly. But I shall be sober in the morning.

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

Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.

For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.

Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.

The maxim "Nothing but perfection" may be spelled "Paralysis

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

Kites rise highest against the wind not with it.

I also hope that I sometimes suggested to the lion the right place to use his claws.

I don't see why not young man. You look reasonably fit to me.

I have waited fifty years to see the Boneless Wonder [Ramsay MacDonald] sitting on the Treasury Bench.

What kind of people do they think we are? Is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to preserve against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?

Success in life is determined by your ability to go from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.

If you mean to profit learn to please.

In those days he was wiser than he is now, he used to frequently take my advice

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.

Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl - no superior alternative has yet been found

The maxim of the British people is Business as usual.

Greatly his foes he dreads but more his friends, he hurts me most who lavishly commends.

I live from mouth to hand.

We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty

There is nothing so exhilarating as to be shot at and missed.

They are clearly very much in love. It must be the end of a series of nightmare years for Camilla every day reading in the papers about being the mistress this and that. They are entitled to have their own happiness the same as everyone else.

People imagine that Churchill Roosevelt and Stalin arrived in Yalta with a blank sheet of paper to decide the fate of Europe. Nothing could be further from the truth

We shall neither fail nor falter, we shall not weaken or tire...give us the tools and we will finish the job.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings, the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

The latest refinements of science are linked with the cruelties of the Stone Age.

Haven't you learned yet that I put something more than whisky into my speeches.

There are few virtues that the Poles do not possess and there are few errors they have ever avoided.

You [Hitler] do your worst and we will do our best.

Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues for upon it all others depend.

The Almighty in His infinite wisdom did not see fit to create Frenchmen in the image of Englishmen.

My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

Atomic energy might be as good as our present day explosives, but is unlikely to produce anything very much more dangerous.

We shall show mercy but we shall not ask for it

You and I must take care not to lose the next war.

It is certainly more agreeable to have power to give than to receive

Everybody has a right to pronounce foreign names as he chooses.

This report by its very length defends itself against the risk of being read.

It is all right to rat but you can't re-rat.

No one can guarantee success in war but only deserve it.

Working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday and ordinary holidays are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation.

We shall not fail or falter, we shall not weaken or tire...Give us the tools and we will finish the job.

When you have an important point to make don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.

It is better to do the wrong thing than to do nothing.

Like the Mississippi it just keeps rolling along. Let it roll. Let it roll on full flood inexorable irresistible benignant to broader lands and better days.

One does not leave a convivial party before closing time.

The United States is like giant boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.

When I warned them (the French) that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet "In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken

We are waiting for the long-promised invasion. So are the fishes.

Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. [About Russia]

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time with a steady eye.

A love for tradition has never weakened a nation; indeed, it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril

The price of greatness is responsibility.

So they [the Government] go on in strange paradox decided only to be undecided resolved to be irresolute adamant for drift solid for fluidity all-powerful for impotence.

Most people stumble over the truth now and then but they usually manage to pick themselves up and go on anyway.

I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

The English never draw a line without blurring it.

We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle

My grandfather had a very nice phrase about your grandfather

These are not dark days: these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived.

with her factories equipped to the very latest point of science by British and American money.

No compromise with the main purpose no peace till victory no pact with unrepentant wrong.

The empires of the future are empires of the mind.

I am not invested with dictatorial powers. If I were I should be quite ready to dictate.

It cannot in the opinion of His Majesty's Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude.

It is a gaping wound whenever one touches it and removes the bandages and plasters of daily life.

All great empires of the future will be empires of the mind.

I cannot pretend to be impartial about the colors. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.

When you get a thing the way you want it leave it alone.

No lover ever studied every whim of his mistress as I did those of President Roosevelt.

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interests.

The loyalties which center upon number one are enormous. If he trips he must be sustained. If he make mistakes they must be covered. If he sleeps he must not be wantonly disturbed. If he is no good he must be pole-axed.

I was never tired of listening to his wisdom or imparting my own.

When you took your seat I felt as if a woman had come into my bathroom and I had only the sponge to defend myself.

Nothing is so exhilarating in life as to be shot at with no result.

At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man walking into the little booth with a little pencil making a little cross on a little bit of paper.

Their insatiable lust for power is only equaled by their incurable impotence in exercising it.

Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.

(Sir Stafford Cripps) has all the virtues I dislike, and none of the vices I admire

Saving is a fine thing. Especially when your parents have done it for you.

I gather young man that you wish to be a member of Parliament. The first lesson that you must learn is when I call for statistics about the rate of infant mortality what I want is proof that fewer babies died when I was Prime Minister than when a

Nothing is more costly nothing is more sterile than vengeance

Although prepared for martyrdom I prefer that it be postponed.

The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.

Solitary trees if they grow at all grow strong.

I like a man who grins when he fights.

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

I'm just preparing my impromptu remarks.

The Times is speechless and it takes three columns to express its speechlessness

Success is bounding from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.

Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne, knowing him was like drinking it.

We must beware of trying to build a society in which nobody counts for anything except a politician or an official a society where enterprise gains no reward and thrift no privileges

If one has to submit it is wasteful not to do so with the best grace possible

It is hard if not impossible to snub a beautiful woman - they remain beautiful and the snub recoils.

It is impossible to obtain a conviction for sodomy from an English jury. Half of them don't believe that it can physically be done and the other half are doing it.

I have never accepted what many people have kindly said-namely that I inspired the nation. Their will was resolute and remorseless and as it proved unconquerable. It fell to me to express it.

Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.

Don't be careless about yourselves--on the other hand not too careful. Live well but do not flaunt it. Laugh a little and teach your men to laugh--get good humor under fire--war is a game that's played with a smile. If you can't smile grin. If you can't grin keep out of the way till you can.

Don't take 'no' for an answer never submit to failure. Do not be fobbed off with mere personal success or acceptance. You will make all kinds of mistakes but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even s

Although present on the occasion I have no clear recollection of the events leading up to it.

People imagine that Churchill Roosevelt and Stalin arrived in Yalta with a blank sheet of paper to decide the fate of Europe. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Some people's idea of [free speech] is that they are free to say what they like but if anyone says anything back that is an outrage.

We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France we shall fight on the seas and oceans we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air we shall defend our island whatever the cost may be.

In war you can be killed only once. In politics many times.

Mr. Attlee is a very modest man. Indeed he has a lot to be modest about.

Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.

Vast and fearsome as the human scene has become personal contact of the right people in the right places at the right time may yet have a potent and valuable part to play in the cause of peace which is in our hearts.

The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that when nations are strong they are not always just and when they wish to be just they are no longer strong.

I do not resent criticism even when for the sake of emphasis it parts for the time with reality.

I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence-which is a noble thing.

Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.

If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.

You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.

...Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages to pick himself up, walk over or around it, and carry on.

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.

There is only one duty only one safe course and that is to try to be right.

A communist is like a crocodile: when it opens its mouth you cannot tell whether it is trying to smile or preparing to eat you up

It wouldn

Sure I am of this that you have only to endure to conquer.

The Bomb brought peace but man alone can keep that peace.

The power of the executive to cast a man into prison ... without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers is in the highest degree odious and the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.

Any man who is under 30 and is not a liberal has not heart, and any man who is over 30 and is not a conservative has no brains.

Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement, then it becomes a mistress and then it becomes a master and then 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 out to the public.

I pass with relief from the tossing sea of cause and theory to the firm ground of result and fact

A vocabulary of truth and simplicity will be of service throughout your life

They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they'd make up their minds.

In war you can only be killed once but in politics many times.

Learn to get used to it [bombing]. Eels get used to skinning.

As far as I can see you have used every cliche except 'God is love' and 'Please adjust your dress before leaving'.

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.

There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues the most dominating virtues of human society are created strengthened and maintained

I do not wonder that British youth is in revolt against the morbid doctrine that nothing matters but the equal sharing of miseries, that what used to be called the submerged tenth can only be rescued by bringing the other nine-tenths down to their le

If this is a blessing it is certainly very well disguised.

The length of this document defends it well against the risk of its being read.

In Franklin Roosevelt there died the greatest American friend we have ever known and the greatest champion of freedom who has ever brought help and comfort from the New World to the Old.

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

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

In wartime truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

Jellicoe was the only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon.

During my life I have often had to eat my own words and on the whole I have found them a wholesome diet

The Prime Minister has nothing to hide from the President of the United States (Stepping from his bath in presence of President Roosevelt).

If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain.

Nothing recalls the past so potently as a smell.

One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

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.

The farther backward you can look the farther forward you are likely to see.

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

Beware the sleeping dragon. For when she awakes the Earth will shake [On China].

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

(Prime Minister Joseph) Chamberlain loves the working man - he loves to see him work

I have taken more good from alcohol than alcohol has taken from me.

The Arabs are a backwards people who eat nothing but Camel dung

The farther backward you can look the farther forward you can see

What is a fine person or a beauteous face Unless deportment give them decent grace, Blessed with all other requisites to please To want the striking elegance of ease, Awkward embarrassed stiff without the skill Of moving gracefully or standing

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

I am bored with it all.

My hand seemed arrested by a silent veto.

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

Opening amenities are often opening inanities.

I am not sure I should have dared to start, but I am sure that I should not have dared to stop.

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

Logic is a poor guide compared with custom.

We must just KBO ('Keep Buggering On').

'You are drunk, Sir Winston, you are disgustingly drunk.' - Yes, Mrs. Braddock, I am drunk. But you, Mrs. Braddock, are ugly and disgustingly fat. But tomorrow morning, I, Winston Churchill, will be sober.

Nothing will bring American sympathy along with us so much as American blood shed in the field

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.

When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened.

[Critics of the reforms are unlikely to be assuaged and they will raise many of their concerns again when the reform bill returns to the Commons in October before heading to the Lords. Its architects might do well to reflect on another quote from one of Woodrow Wilson's contemporaries.] There's nothing wrong with change ... if it's in the right direction.

It would be a great reform in politics if wisdom could be made to spread as easily and rapidly as folly.

Socialism is like a dream. Sooner or later you wake up to reality.

Eating words has never given me indigestion.

To meet Roosevelt with all his buoyant sparkle his iridescence was like opening a bottle of champagne.

We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.

He said he was like a crocodile. You never knew whether he was trying to smile or preparing to swallow you up.

This is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put

The farther back you can look the farther forward you are likely to see.

Don't talk to me about Naval tradition! It's nothing but rum sodomy and the lash

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.

I shall always be glad to have seen it-for the same reason Papa gave for being glad to have seen Lisbon-namely "that it will be unnecessary ever to see it again."

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last

Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty the drama of human life would be destroyed

The biggest mistake that leaders can make is to give people false hope that melts like snow.

The substance of the eminent Socialist gentleman's speech is that making a profit is a sin but it is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss

Broadly speaking human beings may be divided into three classes: those who are billed to death those who are worried to death and those who are bored to death

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

There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.

We must beware of needless innovations especially when guided by logic.

We must build a kind of United States of Europe.

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

It is not alone that property in all its forms is struck at but that liberty in all its forms is challenged by the fundamental conceptions of Socialism

In time of war when truth is so precious it must be attended by a bodyguard of lies

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth but most times he will pick himself up and carry on.

You must look at the facts because they look at you

We have sustained a defeat without a war.

Success is going from failure to failure without the loss of enthusiasm.

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.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.

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.

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

The problems of victory are more agreeable than the problems of defeat but they are no less difficult.

Sure I am this day we are masters of our fate that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength, that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win victory will not be denied us.

We have a lot of anxieties and one cancels out another very often.

Although prepared for martyrdom I preferred that it be postponed.

Each beat guides me in Your direction.

India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the Equator.

Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.

We are masters of the unsaid words but slaves of those we let slip out

Neville Chamberlain looked at foreign affairs through the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe

There's something about the outside of a horse that's good for the inside of a man

Lady Nancy Astor: Winston if you were my husband I'd poison your tea. Churchill: Nancy if I were your husband I'd drink it.

Responsibility is the price of greatness.

I was not the lion but it fell to me to give the lion's roar.

A sheep in sheep's clothing

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse pulling a sturdy wagon.

Soviet Union foreign policy is a puzzle inside a riddle wrapped in an enigma and the key is Russian nationalism.

Civilization will not last freedom will not survive peace will not be kept unless a very large majority of mankind unite together to defend them and show themselves possessed of a constabulary power before which barbaric and atavistic forces will

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.

[And a pamphlet called] Pick me up ... There is no genuine hatred against Herr Hitler.

Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.

There is nothing wrong with change if it is in the right direction

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

There was unanimous automatic unquestioned agreement around our table.

I never worry about action but only about inaction

It would not have been possible for any man in public life to get through what I have gone through without the devoted assistance of what we in England call one's better half.

Anyone can rat but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.

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

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

The human story does not always unfold like a mathematical calculation on the principle that two and two make four. Sometimes in life they make five or minus three, and sometimes the blackboard topples down in the middle of the sum and leaves the class in disorder and the pedagogue with a black eye.

I always seem to get inspiration and renewed vitality by contact with this great novel land of yours which sticks up out of the Atlantic.

One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'.

Remember gentlemen it's not just France we are fighting for its Champagne!

War is a catalouge of blunders.

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

Headmasters have powers at their disposal with which Prime Ministers have never yet been invested

'Mr. Churchill if you were my husband I'd poison your tea!' - And if you were my wife I would drink it!

Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

I have never seen a human being who more perfectly represented the modern conception of a robot.

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

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.

All men make mistakes but only wise men learn from their mistakes.

The rule which forbids ending a sentence with a preposition is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put.

A medal glitters but it also casts a shadow

By being so long in the lowest form I gained an immense advantage over the cleverest boys . . . I got into my bones the essential structure of the normal British sentence - which is a noble thing.

We must have a better word than 'prefabricated'. Why not 'ready-made'?

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years men will still say "This was their finest hour

It's quite simple (public speaking) Say what you have to say, and when you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending, sit down.

The nation will find it very hard to look up to the leaders who are keeping their ears to the ground

Great and good are seldom the same man.

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

At every crisis the Kaiser crumpled. In defeat he fled, in revolution he abdicated, in exile he remarried.

I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

When the war of the giants is over the wars of the pygmies will begin.

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

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

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

If you must kill a man it costs you nothing to be polite about it.

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

Why 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.

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.

To improve is to change. To be perfect is to have changed alot.

To jaw-jaw- is always better than to war-war

Without tradition art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation it is a corpse.

Death came very easily to her. She had lived such an innocent and loving life of service to others and held such a simple faith that she had no fears at all and did not seem to mind very much.

The Russians will try all the rooms in a house enter those that are not locked and when they come to one that cannot be broken into they will withdraw and invite you to dine genially that same evening.

Never never never never give up.

We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us.

It becomes still more difficult to reconcile Japanese action with prudence or even sanity. What kind of people do they think we are?

Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

Nothing would induce me to vote for giving women the franchise. I am not going to be henpecked into a question of such importance.

Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.

Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

When a nation has allowed itself to fall under a tyrannical regime it cannot be absolved from the faults due to the guilt of that regime.

Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.

The shadow of victory is disillusion

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