I still have the ideas, Walter, but I can’t find the words to clothe them. Winston Churchill, reported remarks to Walter Monckton
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more. Winston Churchill, My Early Life: A Roving Commission, 1930
It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer of the type well-known in the East, now posing as a fakir, striding half naked up the steps of the vice-regal palace to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor. Winston Churchill, 1931
It is not a movement of parties but a movement of people. Europe can only be united by the heartfelt wish and vehement expression of the great majority of all the people in all the parties in all the freedom-loving countries no matter where they dwell or how they vote. Winston Churchill
I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat. But the only thing I would whip them for is not knowing English. I would whip them hard for that. Winston Churchill, cited autobiography My Early Life, A Roving Commission pp3-31
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.’ We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Winston Churchill, speech House of Commons 13 May 1940
If this long-island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood on the ground. Winston Churchill, speech to cabinet 28 May 1940, cited Martin Gilbert, viz ‘Finest Hour’
In defeat unbeatable: in victory unbearable. Winston Churchill, re Lord Montgomery
I was conscious at a profound sense of relief. I felt as if I were walking with destiny. And that all my past life had been a preparation for this hour and this trial. I was sure I would not fail. Winston Churchill, 10 May 1940
Joan was a being so uplifted from the ordinary run of mankind that she finds no equal in a thousand years. She embodied the natural goodness and valour of the human race in unexampled perfection. Unconquerable courage, infinite compassion, the virtue of the simple, the wisdom of the just, shone forth in her. She glorifies as she freed the soil from which she sprang. Winston Churchill, The Birth of Britain
Let us to the task, to the battle, to the toil. Each to our part, each to our station. Winston Churchill, Manchester Free Trade Hall January 1940
Like a powerful graceful cat walking delicately and unsoiled across a rather muddy street. Winston Churchill, re Balfour’s moving from Asquith’s cabinet to that of Lloyd George
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 for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. Winston Churchill, 11 November 1947
My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me. Winston Churchill
Nancy Astor: Sir, you’re drunk.
Winston Churchill: Madam, you’re ugly, but in the morning I shall be sober. apocryphal
Nancy Astor: If I were your wife, I’d put poison in your coffee.
Churchill: If you were my wife, I’d drink it. apocryphal
Never give in – never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. Winston Churchill, speech Harrow School 29th October 1941
Never, never, 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. 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. Winston Churchill, My Early Life: A Roving Commission
No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle. Winston Churchill
No-one can guarantee success in war but only deserve it. Winston Churchill, Their Finest Hour
Nothing is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result. Winston Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force, 1898
Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times. Winston Churchill
Remember, gentlemen, it’s not just France we are fighting for, it’s champagne. Winston Churchill
Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. Winston Churchill, Perth Scotland 28th May 1948
Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes you must do what is required. Winston S Churchill
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. Winston Churchill, misattributed
The British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst. Winston Churchill
The candle in that great turnip has gone out. Winston Churchill, re Stanley Baldwin
The creation of an authoritative world order is the ultimate aim toward which we must strive. Winston Churchill, cited George W Blount, Peace Through World Government
The doctrines that by keeping out foreign goods more wealth, and consequently more employment, will be created at home, are either true or they are not true. We contend that they are not true. 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. Winston Churchill, speech Free Trade Hall Manchester February 1904
The empires of the future are the empires of the mind. Winston Churchill, speech Harvard 6th September 1943
The Germans have received back again that measure of fire and steel which they have so often meted out to others. Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. Winston Churchill, speech Lord Mayor’s Luncheon, London 10th November 1942
The House of Lords have only been tolerated all these years because they were thought to be in a comatose condition which preceded dissolution. They have got to dissolution now. That this body, utterly unrepresentative, utterly unreformed, should come forward and claim the right to make and unmake Governments, should lay one greedy paw on the prerogatives of the sovereign and another upon the established and most fundamental privileges of the House of Commons is a spectacle which a year ago no one would have believed could happen; which fifty years ago no Peer would have dared suggest; and which two hundred years ago would not have been discussed in the amiable though active manner of a political campaign, but would have been settled by charges of cavalry and the steady advance of iron-clad pikemen. Winston Churchill, The People’s Rights, 1909
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. Winston Churchill, House of Commons 22 October 1945
The longer you can look back, the father you can look forward. Winston Churchill, variations
The one who cannot see that on Earth a big endeavour is taking place, an important plan, on which realisation we are allowed to collaborate as faithful servants, certainly has to be blind. Winston Churchill, 33rd degree Freemason
The only recorded instance in history of a rat swimming towards a sinking ship. Winston Churchill, re former Conservative who proposed to stand as Liberal
The partition of Czechoslovakia under pressure from England and France amounts to the complete surrender of the Western Democracies to the Nazi threat of force. Such a collapse will bring peace or security neither to England nor to France. On the contrary, it will place these two nations in an ever weaker and more dangerous situation … It is not Czechoslovakia alone which is menaced, but also the freedom and the democracy of all nations. The belief that security can be obtained by throwing a small State to the wolves is a fatal delusion. The war potential of Germany will increase in a short time more rapidly than it will be possible for France and Great Britain to complete the measure necessary for their defence. Winston Churchill, press statement 21 September 1938
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 judgement of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist. Winston Churchill, telegram to Home Secretary