457 Inspiring Quotes by Winston Churchill

We do not covet anything from any nation except their respect.

Victory is the beautiful, bright-colored flower. Transport is the stem without which it could never have blossomed.

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

Sunshine is my quest.

Air superiority is the ultimate expression of military power.

There is no working middle course in wartime.

The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.

It always looks so easy to solve problems by taking the line of least resistance.

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

The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible.

Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge.

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.

I drink a great deal. I sleep a little, and I smoke cigar after cigar. That is why I am in two-hundred-percent form.

Logic is a poor guide compared with custom.

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

Only changes in mindsets can extend the frontiers of the possible.

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

There is not much collective security in a flock of sheep on the way to the butcher.

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

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 interest.

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

Still, it is the primary right of men to die and kill for the land they live in, and to punish with exceptional severity all members of their own race who have warmed their hands at the invaders' hearth.

I let the argument rip healthily between the departments. This is a very good way to finding out the truth.

If it weren't for painting, I wouldn't live; I couldn't bear the extra strain of things.

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

The flame of Christian ethics is still our highest guide.

In order to become a great man, one must first be a great rascal.

Play the game for more than you can afford to lose... only then will you learn the game.

Indeed I do not think we should be justified in using any but the more sombre tones and colours while our people, our Empire, and indeed the whole English-speaking world are passing through a dark and deadly valley.

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Every offensive lost its force as it proceeded. It was like throwing a bucket of water over the floor. It first rushed forward, then soaked forward, and finally stopped altogether until another bucket could be brought.

For with primacy in power is also joined an awe inspiring accountability to the future.

Science bestowed immense new powers on man, and at the same time, created conditions which were largely beyond his comprehension.

The press is easier to strangle than to look in the eyes.

I do not hold that we should rearm in order to fight. I hold that we should rearm in order to parley.

I began my education at a very early age; in fact, right after I left college.

So long as I am acting from duty and conviction, I am indifferent to taunts and jeers. I think they will probably do me more good than harm.

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

There are men in the world who derive an exaltation from the proximity of disaster and ruin, as other from success.

We hope to see a Europe where men of every country will think of being a European as of belonging to their native land, and...wherever they go in this wide domain...will truly feel, ‘Here I am at home.'

Never, never, never give up.

Science has given to this generation the means of unlimited disaster or of unlimited progress. There will remain the greater task of directing knowledge lastingly towards the purpose of peace and human good.

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

After a time, civil servants tend to become no longer servants and no longer civil.

Watch your actions, they become your habits.

There is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.

Hasty work and premature decisions may lead to penalties out of all proportion to the issues immediately involved.

The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen's lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire.

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

The difference between mere management and leadership is communication.

A good speech should be like a woman's skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.

One must regard the hyphen as a blemish to be avoided wherever possible.

Politics is more dangerous than war, for in war you are only killed once.

Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the object worship of the state.

If you want to discover new oceans, you must first have the courage to leave shore.

Woe betide the leaders now perched on their dizzy pinnacles of triumph if they cast away at the conference table what the soldiers had won on a hundred bloodsoaked battlefields.

A modest little person, with much to be modest about.

The only way a man can remain consistent amid changing circumstances is to change with them while preserving the same dominating purpose.

Expert knowledge is limited knowledge.

Much as war attracts me and fascinates my mind with its tremendous situations, I feel more deeply every year ... what vile and wicked folly and barbarism it all is.

I never slept as soundly as the night following Pearl Harbor. For I knew that The American Race would now be entering the war and it would never be the same.

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

Most of the significant contributions that have been made to society have been made by people who were tired.

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

The greatest advances in human civilization have come when we
recovered what we had lost: when we learned the lessons of history.

Men and kings must be judged in the testing moments of their lives. Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because, as has been said, it is the quality which guarantees all others.

My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best.

A baboon in a forest is a matter of legitimate speculation; a baboon in a zoo is an object of public curiosity; but a baboon in your wife's bed is a cause of the gravest concern.

Human beings are of two classes: those whose work is work and whose pleasure is pleasure; and those whose work and pleasure are one.

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

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

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.

Gentleman, I am hardening on this enterprise. I repeat, I am now hardening towards this enterprise.

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.

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

Say what you have to say and the first time you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending -- sit down.

A lady came up to me one day and said 'Sir! You are drunk', to which I replied 'I am drunk today madam, and tomorrow I shall be sober but you will still be ugly.'

Socialism would gather all power to the supreme party and party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of civil servants no longer servants, no longer civil.

Politics is not a game, but a serious business.

The love of a foster mother for her charge appears absolutely irrational.

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.

Nature has not intended mankind to work from eight in the morning until midnight without that refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it only lasts twenty minutes, is sufficient to renew all the vital forces.

In war it does not matter who is right, but who is left.

Achievement is not last, disappointment is not deadly: It is the mettle to proceed with that matters.

Indomitable in retreat, invincible in advance; insufferable in victory.

Even the most eminent persons are subject to the laws of gravity.

Christopher Columbus was the first socialist: he didn't know where he was going, he didn't know where he was? and he did it all at taxpayers expense.

Please put the ladybug outside without harming her.

Those who plan do better than those who do not plan, even should they rarely stick to their plan.

Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

I never worry about action, but only about inaction.

If two people agree on everything, one of them is unnecessary.

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

Nothing can save England if she will not save herself. If we lose faith in ourselves, in our capacity to guide and govern, if we lose our will to live, then indeed our story is told.

A medal glitters, but it also casts a shadow.

Remember gentleman, it's not just France we're fighting for, it's Champagne!

This is the lesson: Never give in ... never, never, never, never... in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in except to convictions of honor or good taste.

Bearing ourselves humbly before God... we await undismayed the impending assault.... be the ordeal sharp or long, or both, we shall seek no terms, we shall tolerate no parlay; we may show mercy -- we shall ask for none.

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

The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.

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.

The most frightful of all spectacles is the strength of the civilization without its mercy.

A small lie needs a bodyguard of bigger lies to protect it.

Danger, if met head on, can be nearly halved.

We make our buildings and afterwards they make us. They regulate the course of our lives.

I think it would be so much better for me to learn something which would be useful to me in the army, as well as affording me exercise and amusement.

Writing ... it begins as an amusement, then it becomes a mistress, then a master, and finally a tyrant.

The high roads of the future will be clear, not only for us but for all, not only for our time but for a century to come.

I have found in my experience of war, that plans are useless, but planning is invaluable.

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

Tidiness is a virtue, symmetry is often a constituent of beauty.

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is a fateful fatalistic apathy.

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

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.

The man who stands firm in order to protect a sand-castle can never be relied upon; for he has given away his common sense.

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

We were not made by Nature to work, or even to play, from eight o'clock in the morning till midnight. We ought to break our days and our marches into two.

To achieve the extirpation of Nazi tyranny there are no lengths of violence to which we will not go.

Here life itself, life at its best and healthiest, awaits the caprice of the bullet. Let us see the development of the day. All else may stand over, perhaps forever. Existence is never so sweet as when it is at hazard.

We are all functioning at a small fraction of our capacity.

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

Armed with a paint-box, one cannot be bored, one cannot be left at a loose end, one cannot have several days on one's hands.

The one who cannot see that on Earth a big endeavor is taking place, an important plan, on which realization we are allowed to collaborate as faithful servants, certainly has to be blind.

Death and sorrow will be the companions of our journey; hardship our garment; constancy and valor our only shield. We must be united, we must be undaunted, we must be inflexible.

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

Smoking cigars is like falling in love; first you are attracted to its shape; you stay with it for its flavour; and you must always remember never, never let the flame go out.

Where there is great power, there is great responsibility.

In Russia a man is called reactionary if he objects to having his property stolen and his wife and children murdered.

The rhinoceros stood ... about five hundred yards away ... not a twentieth-century animal at all, but an odd, grim straggler from the Stone Age.

Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

It is better to be frightened now than killed hereafter.

Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.

Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.

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

You must be prepared for further efforts of mind and body and further sacrifices to great causes, if you are not to fall back into the rut if inertia, the confusion of aim and the craven fear of being great.

There is more blood than paint upon these hands. All those thousands of men killed. We thought it would be a little job, and so it might have been if it had begun in the right way.

War, which used to be cruel and magnificent has now become cruel and squalid.

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

There but for the grace of God, goes God.

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

The Fascists of the future will be the anti-fascists.

Always remember, a cat looks down on man, a dog looks up to man, but a pig will look man right in the eye and see his equal.

I have not become the Kings First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.

This beginning with Audacity, or being thrown into the middle of it, is already a very great part of the art of painting.

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 am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.

Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valor, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar.

We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.

You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.

Free speech carries with it the evil of all foolish, unpleasant venomous things that are said but, on the whole, we would rather lump them than do away with them.

The only guide to man is his conscience.

I cannot but think we have much to be thankful for, and more still to hope for in the future.

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

We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real.

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

Let us set up a standard around which the brave and the loyal can rally.

He is like a female llama surprised in her bath.

It was evident however that the lawyers would have to have their say....This also opened up a vista both lengthy and obscure.

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

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

Here was a place where real things were going on. Here was a scene of vital action. Here was a place where anything might happen. Here was a place where something would certainly happen. Here I might leave my bones.

Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely. No socialist system can be established without a political police.

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.

The maxim of the British people is 'business as usual.'

There is no surer method of economizing and saving money than in the reduction of the number of officials.

We would rather see London laid in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved.

I get my exercise being a pallbearer for those of my friends who believed in regular running and calisthenics.

Victory will never be found by taking the path of least resistance.

Study history, study history. In history lie all the secrets of statecraft.

It has not fallen to your lot to command great armies. You had to create them, organize them and inspire them.

Do you know why the nose of the bull dog is sloped backwards? So it can keep on breathing without ever letting go.

What is adequacy? Adequacy is no standard at all.

Eating words has never given me indigestion.

If, however, there is to be a war of nerves let us make sure our nerves are strong and are fortified by the deepest convictions of our hearts.

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

He spoke with more eloquence than wisdom.

Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.

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

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.

Nothing is more costly, nothing is more sterile, than vengeance.

It is easier to give directions than advice, and more agreeable to have the right to act, even in a limited sphere, than the privilege to talk at large.

For the first time I heard shots fired in anger, heard bullets strike flesh or whistle through the air.

I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

Dead birds don't fall out of their nests.

Never give in. Never, never, never.

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

I am weary of a task which is done and I hope I shall not shrink when the aftermath ends. My only wish is to live peacefully out the remaining years -- if years they be.

I neither want it Brandy nor need it, but I should think it pretty hazardous to interfere with the ineradicable habit of a lifetime.

Canada is the linchpin of the English-speaking world.

Curse ruthless time! Curse our mortality. How cruelly short is the allotted span for all we must cram into it!

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

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

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

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.

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.

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

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

Opening amenities are often opening inanities.

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

Painting came to my rescue in a most trying time.

No one ever finds life worth living -- one has to make it worth living.

The shortest road to ruin is to emulate the methods of your adversary.

Doubts could be swept away only by deeds.

No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle.

May the pain you have known and the conflict you have experienced give you the strength to walk through life facing each new situation with courage and optimism.

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

Have no fear of the future. Let us go forward into its mysteries, tear away the veils which hide it from our eyes, and move onwards with confidence and courage.

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

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

I'm going to make a long speech because I've not had the time to prepare a short one.

By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach.

They said it was only a ground shark; but I was not wholly reassured. It is as bad to be eaten by a ground shark as by any other.

To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to change often.

There is in the act of preparing, the moment you start caring.

Some people did not like this ceremonious style. But after all when you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.

I decline utterly to be impartial between the fire brigade and the fire.

I propose that 100,000 degenerate Britons should be forcibly sterilized and others put in labour camps to halt the decline of the British race.

The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

A gentleman is a man who is only rude when he intends to be.

What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes.

If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.

Unteachable from infancy to tomb -- There is the first and main characteristic of mankind.

You create your own universe as you go along.

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

Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.

Perfectionism spells paralysis.

Do not turn the superior eye of critical passivity upon these efforts... We must not be ambitious. We cannot aspire to masterpieces. We may content ourselves with a joy ride in a paint-box.

Praise the humanities, my boy. That'll make them think you're broadminded!

Never stand when you can sit, and never sit when you can lie down.

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

When I'm in office I always keep Members of Parliament talking. If they stopped they might start thinking.

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

In war, truth is often the first casualty.

These are great days.

From now on we shall bomb Germany on an ever-increasing scale, month by month, year by year, until the Nazi regime has either been exterminated by us or -- better still -- torn to pieces by the German people themselves.

Success is never final.

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

Watch your character -- for your character is your destiny.

There was a man who sold a hyena skin while the beast still lived and who was killed in hunting it.

The British people are good all through. You can test them as you would put a bucket into the sea and always find it salt.

Elderly people and those in authority cannot always be relied upon to take enlightened and comprehending views of what they call the indiscretions of youth.

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.

There's no such thing as a good tax.

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

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

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.

Don't deliver an essay with so many points. No one can absorb it. Just say one thing... Of course, you can say the point in many different ways over and over again with different illustrations.

If you cannot read all your books, at any rate handle them, and, as it were, fondle them. Let them fall open where they will. Make a voyage of discovery, taking soundings of uncharted seas.

A heightened sense of the observation of nature is one of the chief delights that have come to me through trying to paint.

Be a peg, hammered into the frozen ground, immovable.

The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.

Magna Carta provided "a system of checks and balances which would accord the monarchy its necessary strength, but would prevent its perversion by a tyrant or a fool.

Never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter.

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.

The tank was originally invented to clear a way for the infantry in the teeth of machine-gun fire. Now it is the infantry who will have to clear a way for the tanks.

God for a month of power and a good shorthand writer.

When eagles are silent, parrots begin to chatter.

Mountaintops inspire leaders but valleys mature them.

You have to run risks. There are no certainties in war. There is a precipice on either side of you -- a precipice of caution and a precipice of over-daring.

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.

It is no use dealing with illusions and make-believes. We must look at the facts. The world ... is too dangerous for anyone to be able to afford to nurse illusions. We must look at realities.

Without courage all other virtues lose their meaning.

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

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.

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

We must have a better word than "prefabricated", why not "ready-made?"

Let the children have their night of fun and laughter, let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play. Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures.

The monarchy is so extraordinarily useful. When Britain wins a battle she shouts, God save the Queen; when she loses, she votes down the prime minister.

Land monopoly is not only monopoly, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies; it is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly.

An American diplomat is sometimes like a bull who carries his own china shop around with him.

When a new book appears one should read an old one.

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

It is wonderful what great strides can be made when there is a resolute purpose behind them.

War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.

You must put your head into the lion's mouth if the performance is to be a success.

Great and good are seldom the same man.

The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash.

We The British have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.

Nothing is perfect on the human stage.

You ought to let the Jews have Jerusalem; it is they who made it famous.

I play for high stakes and given an audience -- there is no act too daring or too noble.

Fancy cutting down all those beautiful trees...to make pulp for those bloody newspapers, and calling it civilisation.

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

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

Painting a picture is like trying to fight a battle.

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

Experts should be on tap but never on top.

It is my belief, you cannot deal with the most serious things in the world unless you understand the most amusing.

The Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the future of Christian civilisation.

It is more agreeable to have the power to give than to receive.

The water was not fit to drink. To make it palatable, we had to add whisky. By diligent effort, I learned to like it.

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

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

The jury system has come to stand for all we mean by English justice. The scrutiny of 12 honest jurors provides defendants and plaintiffs alike a safeguard from arbitrary perversion of the law.

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

We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls.

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.

Just to paint is great fun. The colours are lovely to look at and delicious to squeeze out. Matching them, however crudely, with what you see is fascinating and absolutely absorbing.

When you are on a great horse, you have the best seat you will ever have.

Every garden presents innumerable fascinating problems.

I look like a down-and-out drunk who has been picked out of the gutter in the Strand.

There is a good saying to the effect that when a new book appears one should read an old one. As as author I would not recommend too strict an adherence to this saying.

The English never draw a line without blurring it.

If you are going to go through hell, keep going.

The test of real character is what a man does when he is tired.

I feel like an aeroplane at the end of its flight, in the dusk, with the petrol running out, in search of a safe landing.

I'd rather spend half an hour in the company of a top carpenter, than three hours in the company of an average brain surgeon.

At one side of the palette there is white, at the other black; and neither is ever used neat.

True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.

If we could get out of this jam by giving up Malta and Gibraltar and some African colonies I would jump at it. But the only safe way is to convince Hitler that he cannot beat us.

The great defence against aerial menace is to attack the enemy's aircraft as near as possible to their point of departure.

Of all the branches of men in the forces there is none which shows more devotion and faces grimmer perils than the submariners.

I could not help reflecting that the bullet which had struck the chestnut horse had certainly passed within a foot of my head. So at any rate I had been 'under fire.' That was something.

The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.

Playing golf is like chasing a quinine pill around a cow pasture.

A world united is better than a world divided, but a world divided is better than a world destroyed.

Time and the Ocean and some guiding star and High Cabal have made us what we are.

A love of tradition has never weakened a nation.

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

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

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.

Without victory there is no survival!

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

I like a man who grins when he fights.

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

I would tell myself that I was about to address the largest mass assembly of idiots ever gathered in the history of mankind.

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

My education was interrupted only by my schooling.

The vistas of possibility are only limited by the shortness of life.

Our free trade plan is quite simple. We say that every citizen shall have the right to buy whatever he wants, wherever he wants, at his own good pleasure, without restriction or discouragement from the state.

Diplomacy is the art of telling plain truths without giving offense.

There is at least one thing worse than fighting with allies -- And that is to fight without them.

I have in my life concentrated more on self-expression than self-denial.

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

Never pass up the chance to sit down or go to the bathroom.

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

The person of truth must be covered with bodyguards of lies.

There is no sphere of human thought in which it is easier to show superficial cleverness and the appearance of superior wisdom than in discussing questions of currency and exchange.

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

In battles two things are usually required of the Commander-in-Chief: to make a good plan for his army and, secondly, to keep a strong reserve.

The V sign is the symbol of the unconquerable will of the occupied territories, and a portent of the fate awaiting the Nazi tyranny.

Air power can either paralyze the enemy's military action or compel him to devote to the defense of his bases and communications a share of his strained resources far greater that what we need in the attack.

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

I accumulated in those years so fine a surplus in the Book of Observance that I have been drawing confidently upon it ever since.

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

An iron curtain has descended over Europe.

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

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

One may imagine that a man who blew the trumpet for his living would be glad to play the violin for his amusement.

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

Never was so much owed by so many to so few.

The world today is ruled by harassed politicians absorbed in getting into office or turning out the other man so that not much room is left for debating the great issues on their merits.

Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

Everything trends towards catastrophe and collapse. I am interested, geared up and happy. Is it not horrible to be built like that?

The old wars were decided by their episodes rather than by their tendencies. In this war, the tendencies are far more important than the episodes.

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

The is always much to be said for not attempting more than you can do and for making a certainty of what you try. But this principle, like others in life and war, has it exceptions.

I am a sporting man. I always like to give trains and aeroplanes a fair chance of getting away.

When I look round to see how we can win the war, I see that there is only one sure path ... and that is absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from this country upon the Nazi homeland.

Censure is often useful, praise is often deceitful.

Building slow destroyers! One might as well breed slow race horses.

I myself find waiting more tiring than action.

If you simply take up the attitude of defending a mistake, there will no hope of improvement.

One cannot leap a chasm in two jumps.

It is not open to the cool bystander ... to set himself up as an impartial judge of events which would never have occurred had he outstretched a helping hand in time.

A joke is a very serious thing.

I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British instead of the other way around, I might have gotten here on my own.

Americans are a wonderful people: They will always do the right thing -- after exhausting every other possible alternative.

Strategy is all very well, but it pays to give thought from time to time to the results.

Never does a man portray his character more vividly than when proclaiming the character of another.

And what a plan! This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever occurred.

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.

When we judge or criticize another person, it says nothing about that person; it merely says something about our own need to be critical.

An aphorism is not an aphorism unless you know what it means.

The spacious philanthropy which President Woodrow Wilson exhaled upon Europe stopped quite sharply at the coasts of his own country.

Always remember that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

When I was younger I made it a rule never to take a strong drink before lunch. Now it is my rule never to do so before breakfast.

The chief aim of wisdom is to enable one to bear with the stupidity of the ignorant.

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

Where there is a great deal of free speech there is always a certain amount of foolish speech.

Of all the talents bestowed upon men, none is so precious as the gift of oratory. He who enjoys it wields a power more durable than that of a great king. He is an independent force in the world.

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

Advertising nourishes the consuming power of men. It sets up before a man the goal of a better home, better clothing, better food for himself and his family. It spurs individual exertion and greater production.

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

Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes you must do what is required.

We are all worms, But I do believe that I am a glow worm.

We must not lose our faculty to dare, particularly in dark days.

The substance of the eminent Socialist gentlemen's speech is that making a profit is a sin. It is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss!

It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; I consider the real vice is making losses.

Never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man.

We shall never surrender.

Hatred plays the same part in government as acid in chemistry.

In Great Britain, governments often change their policies without changing their men. In France, they usually change their men without changing their policy.

We build dwellings and thereafter they build us.

I have had to eat my own words many times, and I have found it a very nourishing diet.

I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilized tribes.

Schools have not necessarily much to do with education...they are mainly institutions of control where certain basic habits must be inculcated in the young. Education is quite different and has little place in school.

It is one thing to see the forward path and another to be able to take it. But it is better to have an ambitious plan than none at all.

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.