My early life by Winston Spencer Churchill. On 16th September 1897 at the age of 22 I found myself taking part in a punitive expedition. Young Winston 1972 starring Simon Ward & Anne Bancroft & Robert Shaw & Jack Hawkins & Ian Holm & Anthony Hopkins & Patrick Magee & Edward Woodward & John Mills & Peter Cellier & Ronald Hines & Pat Heywood & Robert Hardy et al, director Richard Attenborough, opening commentary
You’re my greatest disappointment. ibid. father to son
I believe in myself. I believe in my destiny. ibid. Winston
How I Escaped. Mr. Winston Churchill Tells His Story. Six Days of Adventure and Misery. Newspaper article
A modest person with much to be modest about. Winston Churchill, re Attlee, attributions & variations
A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that freemen prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny. Winston Churchill, cited You Get It In Black and White, Collier’s 28 December 1935
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. Winston Churchill, cited Readers’ Digest December 1954; The New York Times 21 January 1940 cited the speech as: ‘Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear greatly that the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar ever more loudly ever more widely.’
A sheep in sheep’s clothing. (Insults & Churchill) Winston Churchill, re Ramsay MacDonald, attributions & variations inc Edmund Gosse re Sturge Moore
Battle must be fought to the bitter end. Commander and senior officers should die with the troops. The honour of the British Empire is at stake. Winston Churchill, re Singapore
British people are highly indebted and obliged to Sikhs for a long time. I know that within this century we needed their help twice and they did help us very well. As a result of their timely help, we are today able to live with honour, dignity, and independence. In the war, they fought and died for us, wearing the turbans. Winston Churchill
Business carried on as usual during alterations on the map of Europe. Winston Churchill, 1914
But the Mohammedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance. It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since, its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness. In a moment the fruits of patient toil, the prospects of material prosperity, the fear of death itself, are flung aside. The more emotional Pathans are powerless to resist. All rational considerations are forgotten. Seizing their weapons, they become Ghazis – as dangerous and as sensible as mad dogs: fit only to be treated as such. While the more generous spirits among the tribesmen become convulsed in an ecstasy of religious bloodthirstiness, poorer and more material souls derive additional impulses from the influence of others, the hopes of plunder and the joy of fighting. Thus whole nations are roused to arms. Thus the Turks repel their enemies, the Arabs of the Soudan break the British squares, and the rising on the Indian frontier spreads far and wide. In each case civilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism. The forces of progress clash with those of reaction. The religion of blood and war is face to face with that of peace. Winston S Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force
Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. Winston Churchill, misattributed
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. Winston Churchill, misattributed
Criticism may not be agreeable but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. Winston Churchill
Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry. Winston Churchill, Armistice – Or Peace, The Evening Standard 11 November 1937
Everyone can see how communism rots the soul of the nation. How it makes it abject in peace and proves it abominable in war. Winston Churchill, cited Timewatch: Russia: A Century of Suspicion, BBC 2016
Everyone is in favour of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage. Winston S Churchill, Hansard 13 October 1943
For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all Parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history. Winston Churchill
Headmasters have powers at their disposal with which prime ministers have never yet been invested. Winston Churchill, My Early Life ch2
He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire. Winston Churchill, re Stafford Cripps, 9th February 2015
He is one of those orators of whom it was well said, Before they get up, they do not know what they are going to say; when they are speaking, they do not know what they are saying; and when they have sat down, they do not know what they have said. Winston Churchill, re Lord Charles Beresford
Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. Not content with having all Europe under his heel, or else terrorised into various forms of abject submission, he must now carry his work of butchery and desolation among the vast multitudes of Russia and of Asia. The terrible military machine – which we and the rest of the civilised world so foolishly, so supinely, so insensately allowed the Nazi gangsters to build up year by year from almost nothing – cannot stand idle lest it rust or fall to pieces. ... So now this bloodthirsty guttersnipe must launch his mechanized armies upon new fields of slaughter, pillage and devastation. Winston Churchill, radio broadcast on German invasion of Russia 22 June 1941
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 this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome. Winston S Churchill, The River Wars
I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught. Winston Churchill, House of Commons 4th November 1952
I am convinced that the multiplication of the feeble-minded is a very terrible danger to the race. Winston Churchill, letter to Hebert Asquith
I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend. If you have one. George Bernard Shaw, re Winston Churchill, apocryphal
cf.
Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second ... if there is one. Winston Churchill to George Bernard Shaw, apocryphal
I am ready to meet my maker, but whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter. Winston Churchill
I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Winston Churchill
I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas.
I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected. Winston Churchill, War Office memorandum 12 May 1919, cited Churchill Centre
If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons. Winston Churchill, to personal secretary on eve of Operation Barbarossa
If you cannot read all your books ... fondle them – peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them, at any rate, be your acquaintances. Winston Churchill
I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me. Winston Churchill
I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. Winston Churchill
I’m bored with it all. Winston Churchill, reported last words
In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill. Winston Churchill, inscription for French war memorial
I remember, when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum’s circus, which contains an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the programme which I most desired to see was the one described as the Boneless Wonder. My parents judged that that spectacle would be too revolting and demoralizing for my youthful eyes, and I have waited 50 years to see the boneless wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench. Winston Churchill, re Ramsay MacDonald