Search

The Online Encyclopedia and Dictionary

 
     
 

Encyclopedia

Dictionary

Quotes

 

Winston Churchill

Table of contents

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

K.G. (November 30, 1874 - January 24, 1965 ), a British politician, best known as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during World War II .

Sourced:

Early Career

  • "What is the true and original root of Dutch aversion to British rule? It is the abiding fear and hatred of the movement that seeks to place the native on a level with the white man...the Kaffir is to be declared the brother of the European, to be constituted his legal equal, to be armed with political rights."
    • London to Ladysmith via Pretoria, 1900, in reference to the Boers of South Africa
  • "It is the habit of the boa constrictor to besmear the body of his victim with a foul slime before he devours it; and there are many people in England, and perhaps elsewhere, who seem to be unable to contemplate military operations for clear political objects, unless they can cajole themselves into the belief that their enemy are utterly and hopelessly vile... This may be very comforting to philanthropic persons at home; but when an army in the field becomes imbued with the idea that the enemy are vermin who cumber the earth, instances of barbarity may very easily be the outcome. This unmeasured condemnation is moreover as unjust as it is dangerous and unnecessary."
    • Speech to the House of Commons on Kitchener 's desecration of the tomb of Muhammad Ahmad
  • "The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate... I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed."
    • Churchill to Asquith, 1910
  • "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."
    • War Office Departmental Minute, 12 May 1919, Churchill Papers 16/16, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge. Quotes from this passage are often taken out of this context, in which it is clear that by "poisoned gas," Churchill was distinguishing between non-lethal agents and the deadly gasses used in World War I , however so-called "non-lethal" gas killed many young and elderly Kurds and Arabs when the RAF used it in Iraq during the British occupation. It might also be worth noting that at the same time failed attempts were made to make use of mustard gas against the rebeling villages.
  • First there are the Jews who, dwelling in every country throughout the world, identify themselves with that country, enter into its national life and, while adhering faithfully to their own religion, regard themselves as citizens in the fullest sense of the State which has received them. Such a Jew living in England would say, "I am an English man practising the Jewish faith." This is a worthy conception, and useful in the highest degree. We in Great Britain well know that during the great struggle the influence of what may be called the "National Jews" in many lands was cast preponderatingly on the side of the Allies; and in our own Army Jewish soldiers have played a most distinguished part, some rising to the command of armies, others winning the Victoria Cross for valour.
  • "The choice was clearly open: crush them with vain and unstinted force, or try to give them what they want. These were the only alternatives and most people were unprepared for either. Here indeed was the Irish spectre - horrid and inexorcisable."
    • The World Crisis and the Aftermath, 1923-31
  • "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."
    • Roving Commission: My Early Life (1930) Chapter 9
  • "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 Viceregal palace to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor."
    • Comment on Gandhi's meeting with the Viceroy of India, 1931
  • "Mr. Gandhi has gone very high in my esteem since he stood up for the untouchables...I do not care whether you are more or less loyal to Great Britain...Tell Mr Gandhi to use the powers that are offered and make the thing a success."
    • "Churchill to G.D. Birla, 1935." Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, vol. 5
  • "One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations."
  • "We cannot tell whether Hitler will be the man who will once again let loose upon the world another war in which civilization will irretrievably succumb, or whether he will down in history as the man who restored honour and peace of mind to the Great Germanic nation."
    • "Hitler and His Choice," The Strand Magazine, November 1935
  • "So they [the Government] go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent."
    • Speech in the House of Commons (November 12, 1936)
  • "I do not admit... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia... by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race... has come in and taken its place."
    • Churchill to Palestine Royal Commission (1937)

World War II

  • "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."
    • Radio speech (October 1, 1939)
  • "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 suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can 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."
    • Speech in the House of Commons upon taking office as prime minister (May 13, 1940) This has often been misquoted with the statement: "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears."
  • "We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."
    • Speech to the House of Commons (June 4, 1940)
  • "Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us now. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour."
    • Speech in the House of Commons (June 18, 1940)
  • "We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it."
    • Speech in the House of Commons (July 14, 1940)
  • "Never in the field of human conflict has so much, been owed by so many, to so few".
    • Speech in the House of Commons (August 20, 1940) complimenting the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain .
  • "Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt: We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire... Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job."
    • BBC radio broadcast (Feb 9, 1941)
  • "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."
    • Speech in the House of Commons (June 10, 1941)
  • "If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil, in the House of Commons"
    • Speech in the House of Commons (after German invasion of the USSR)
  • "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."
    • Speech at Harrow School (October 29, 1941)
  • "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
    • Speech after the British defeat of the German Afrika Korps at the Second Battle of Alamein in Egypt (November 10, 1942)
  • "The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."
    • Speech at Harvard University (September 6, 1943)
  • "The power of the executive to cast a man in prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government, whether Nazi or Communist."
    • Telegram by Churchill from Cairo, Egypt to Home Secratary Herbert Morrison (November 21, 1943)
  • "The object of presenting medals, stars, and ribbons is to give pride and pleasure to those who have deserved them."
    • Speech in the House of Commons (March 22, 1944)
  • "A love of tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril; but the new view must come, the world must roll forward."
    • Speech in the House of Commons (November 29, 1944)
  • “It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed."
    • After bombing of Dresden in February 1945 (source: Patrick J. Buchanan, Where the Right Went Wrong, New York 2004, p. 119f, ISBN 0-312-34115-6)

After World War II

  • "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent."
    • Speech at Fulton, Missouri (March 5, 1946)
  • "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 all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
    • Speech in the House of Commons (November 11, 1947)
  • "One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'."
    • The Second World War Volume I : The Gathering Storm (1948)
  • "Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse."
    • Speech to Royal Academy of Art (1953); quoted in Time (May 11, 1954)
  • "For myself, I am an optimist— it does not seem to be much use being anything else."
    • Speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet, London (November 9, 1954)
  • "The day may dawn when fair play, love for one's fellow men, respect for justice and freedom, will enable tormented generations to march forth triumphant from the hideous epoch in which we have to dwell. Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair."
    • The ending of Churchill's last major speech to the House of Commons (March 1, 1955)
  • "I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel. He replied, 'Verify your quotations.'"�
    • Quoted in Rudolf Flesch, ed., The New Book of Unusual Quotations (NY: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 311�
  • "Withhold no sacrifice, begrudge no toil, seek no sordid gain, fear no foe, all will be well." [1]
  • "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."

Attributed

Historical

  • "A modest man, who has much to be modest about"
    • Referring to: Clement Atlee
  • "A sheep in sheep's clothing"
    • Referring to: Clement Atlee
  • "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute talk with the average voter."
  • "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery."
  • "When all was over, torture and cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian States had been able to deny themselves: and these were of doubtful utility." (Observations on World War I)
  • America should have minded her own business and stayed out of the World War. If you hadn't entered the war the Allies would have made peace with Germany in the Spring of 1917. Had we made peace then there would have been no collapse in Russia followed by Communism, no breakdown in Italy followed by Fascism, and Germany would not have signed the Versailles Treaty, which has enthroned Nazism in Germany. If America had stayed out of the war, all these isms wouldn't today be sweeping the continent of Europe and breaking down parliamentary government— and if England had made peace early in 1917, it would have saved over one million British, French, American, and other lives. [purportedly, interview in New York Enquirer 1936]
  • "In time of war, when truth is so precious, it must be attended by a bodyguard of lies". Alternatively: "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
  • "The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative."
  • "The further back I look, the further forward I can see."
  • "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."
  • "Thus ended the great American Civil War, which upon the whole must be considered the noblest and least avoidable of all the great mass conflicts of which till then there was record."
    • Winston Churchill in his book A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

Wit

  • And you, madam, are ugly. But in the morning I shall be sober.
    • to Bessie Braddock after she accused him of being drunk
  • I believe the member has committed a terminological inexactitude.
    • it is against House of Commons etiquette to call another Member a liar - with this phrase - Churchill is considered to be the only Member to manage to do so without censure from the Speaker of the House
  • Lady Nancy Astor: "Winston, if you were my husband, I'd poison your tea."
    Winston Churchill: "Nancy, if I were your husband, I'd drink it."
  • "This is the sort of pedantry up with which I shall not put."
    • Purportedly upon being accused of ending his sentences with prepositions. Had he said "This is the sort of pedantry I shall not put up with.", he would have committed the same offence of which he was accused.
  • "The water was not fit to drink. To make it palatable, we had to add whisky. By diligent effort, I learnt to like it."
  • "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
  • "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
  • "I am prepared to meet my maker. Whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter." (on the eve of his 75th birthday)
  • "I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns."
  • "I gather, young man, that you wish to be a Member of Parliament. The first lesson that you must learn is, when I call for statistics about the rate of infant mortality, what I want is proof that fewer babies died when I was Prime Minister than when anyone else was Prime Minister. That is a political statistic."
  • "Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash." (According to the Falsely Attributed Quotations page at the Churchill Centre, Churchill denied having said this, but expressed the wish that he had.)
  • "Cross of Lorraine"

The hardest cross I have to bear is the Cross of Lorraine." -- This remark about the intractable Charles de Gaulle was actually made by General Spears, Churchill's envoy to France.

Aphorisms

  • "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
  • "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its trousers on."
  • "Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed."
  • "Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all."
  • "Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb."
  • "I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents."
  • "I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."
    • (But his black cat, Nelson, is reputed to have had a chair at Cabinet).
  • "It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time."
  • "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."
  • "Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room."
  • "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."
  • "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."
  • "Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught."
  • "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."
  • "The price of greatness is responsibility."
  • "The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning."
  • "There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true."
  • "To improve is to change. To be perfect is to change often."
  • "We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give."
  • "When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticise or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home."
  • "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."
  • "When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite."
  • "You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."
  • "The reason for having diplomatic relations is not to confer a compliment, but to secure a convenience."
  • "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."
  • "The maxim 'nothing avails but perfection' may be spelt shorter, PARALYSIS."

External links


Last updated: 10-26-2005 03:52:15