Quotes by Winston Churchill (Page 2 of 3)

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

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.

Here is a law which is above the King and which even he must not break. This reaffirmation of a supreme law and its expression in a general charter is the great work of Magna Carta; and this alone justifies the respect in which men have held it.

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

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

The English never draw a line without blurring it.

My ability to persuade my wife to marry me was quite my most brilliant achievement ... Of course, it would have been impossible for any ordinary man to have got through what I had to go through in peace and war without the devoted aid of what we call, in England, one's better half.

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

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

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

Dead birds don't fall out of their nests.

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

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.

Nothing is perfect on the human stage.

Painting a picture is like trying to fight a battle.

The stations of uncensored expression are closing down; the lights are going out; but there is still time for those to whom freedom and parliamentary government mean something, to consult together. Let me, then, speak in truth and earnestness while time remains.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

There comes a precious moment in all of our lives when we are tapped on the shoulder and offered the opportunity to do something very special that is unique to us and our abilities, what a tragedy it would be if we are not ready or willing.

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

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

Logic is a poor guide compared with custom.

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

An extra yawn one morning in the springtime, an extra snooze one night in the autumn is all that we ask in return for dazzling gifts. We borrow an hour one night in April; we pay it back with golden interest five months later.

Our inheritance of well-founded, slowly conceived codes of honor, morals and manners, the passionate convictions which so many hundreds of millions share together of the principles of freedom and justice, are far more precious to us than anything which scientific discoveries could bestow.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Doubts could be swept away only by deeds.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

The women's suffrage movement is only the small edge of the wedge, if we allow women to vote it will mean the loss of social structure and the rise of every liberal cause under the sun. Women are well represented by their fathers, brothers, and husbands.

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.

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

I have never promised anything but blood, tears, toil and sweat. Now, however we have a new experience. We have a victory -- a remarkable and definite victory. The bright gleam has caught the helmets of our soldiers and warmed and cheered all our hearts.

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.

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.

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

It is better to be frightened now than killed hereafter.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Perfectionism spells paralysis.

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

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

I had been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who got drunk -- and I would have liked to have the boozing scholars of the Universities wheeled into line and properly chastised for their squalid misuse of what I must ever regard as a gift of the gods.

Air superiority is the ultimate expression of military power.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 level.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

If I had my way, I would write the word 'insure' over every door of every cottage and upon the blotting pad of every public man, because I am convinced that, for sacrifice that are conceivably small, families can be secured against catastrophes which otherwise would smash them forever.

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

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.

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.

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

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

The salvation of the common people of every race and of every land from war or servitude must be established on solid foundations and must be guarded by the readiness of all men and women to die rather than submit to tyranny.

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

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

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

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

When great causes are on the move in the world, stirring all men's souls, drawing them from their firesides, casting aside comfort, wealth and the pursuit of happiness in response to impulses at once awe-striking and irresistible, we learn that we are spirits, not animals.

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

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.

I do not apologize for the takeover of the region by the Jews from the Palestinians in the same way I don't apologize for the takeover of America by the whites from the Red Indians or the takeover of Australia from the blacks. It is natural for a superior race to dominate an inferior one.

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.

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

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

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

There's no such thing as a good tax.

The destiny of man is not measured by material computations. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we're spirits--not animals…. There's something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.

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

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

If we look to our responsibility to the generations yet unborn who will come after us, how can we fail to recognize that peace and freedom are inextricably bound up one with another and that the threat to one is a threat to both.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go. Continuous effort -- not strength or intelligence -- is the key to unlocking our potential.

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

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.

It is a curious fact about British Islanders, who hate drill and have not been invaded for nearly a thousand years, that as danger comes nearer and grows they become progressively less nervous; when it is imminent the are fierce, when it is mortal they are fearless.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

I never worry about action, but only about inaction.

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

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

Sunshine is my quest.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Every garden presents innumerable fascinating problems.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.'

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

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

Painting came to my rescue in a most trying time.

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

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

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

A joke is a very serious thing.

Without victory there is no survival!

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

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

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

There but for the grace of God, goes God.

Make for the children an evening of happiness in a world of storm. Let the children have their night of fun and laughter... resolved that by our daring, these same children shall not be denied their right to live in a free and decent world.

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

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

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

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

These are great days.

Canada is the linchpin of the English-speaking world.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

You create your own universe as you go along.

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.

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

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

Never give in. Never, never, never.