Winston Churchill quotes

“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.”

“A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.”

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

“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.”

“A man does what he must in spite of personal consequences in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures and that is the basis of all human morality.”

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

“A man must choose his own way of life, and… it is only by following out one’s own bent that there can be the really harmonious life.”

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

“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.”

“A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.”

“A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.”

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

“All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.”

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”

“An old battle-axe of a woman said to Winston Churchill, "If you were my husband I would put poison in your tea." Churchill's response, "Ma'am if you were my wife I would drink it.”

“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”

“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.”

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

“Churchill: "Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?" Socialite: "My goodness, Mr. Churchill... Well, I suppose... we would have to discuss terms, of course... "
Churchill: "Would you sleep with me for five pounds?"
Socialite: "Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!" Churchill: "Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.”

“Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking our potential.”

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body; it calls attention to the development of an unhealthy state of things. If it is heeded in time, danger may be averted; if it is suppressed, a fatal distemper may develop.”

“Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”

“Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.”

“Dinner would have been splendid... if the wine had been as cold as the soup, the beef as rare as the service, the brandy as old as the fish, and the maid as willing as the Duchess.”

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

“Don't interrupt me while I'm interrupting.”

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

“Doubts can be swept away only by deeds.”

“Everyone is in favor 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.”

“Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.”

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

“Good and great are seldom in the same man.”

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”

“Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.”

“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”

“I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”

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

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

“I'm bored with it all.”

“I've gotten more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.”

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

“If you are going through hell, keep going.”

“If you are going to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.”

“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.”

“If 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.”

“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.”

“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.”

“It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.”

“It is always more easy to discover and proclaim general principles than to apply them.”

“Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.”

“Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.”

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”

“My education was interrupted only by my schooling.”

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

“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 honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”

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

“Now that we have run out of money we have to think.”

“Of course I'm an egoist. Where do you get if you aren't?”

“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.”

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

“Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.”

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

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

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.”

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

“Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.”

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

“The further backward you look, the further forward you can see.”

“The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.”

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent vice of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

“The most important thing about education is appetite.”

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

“The price of greatness is responsibility.”

“The way to achieve happiness is to try for perfection that is impossible to achieve, and spend the rest of your life trying to achieve it.”

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

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

“There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.”

“This paper, by its very length, defends itself from ever being read.”

“Those whose work and pleasure are one... are... Fortune's favoured children.”

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

“To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.”

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

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

“We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.”

“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.”

“What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?”

“When I hear a man say that his childhood was the happiest time of his life, I think my friend, you have had a pretty poor life.”

“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.”

“When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.”

“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.”

“When we look back on all the perils through which we have passed... why should we fear for our future?”

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

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

“Without courage all other virtues lose their meaning.”

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

“You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.”

“You create your own universe as you go along.”

“You have enemies? Good. It means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

“You make a living by what you get; you make a life by what you give.”

“You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war.”

“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.”

“You'll never find a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.”