Famous Quotes By Winston Churchill

 

1. A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
2. A joke is a very serious thing.
3. A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
4. A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.
5. All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
6. Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.
7. Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.
8. Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.
9. Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities... because it is the quality which guarantees all others.
10. Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
11. For good or for ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept a subordinate rank.
12. 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 myself.
13. Great and good are seldom the same man.
14. Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.
15. History is written by the victors.
16. History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
17. I always seem to get inspiration and renewed vitality by contact with this great novel land of yours which sticks up out of the Atlantic.
18. I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.
19. I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.
20. I am easily satisfied with the very best.
21. I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
22. I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting.
23. I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
24. I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.
25. If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.
26. 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.
27. If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.
28. If you're going through hell, keep going.
29. 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.
30. In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.
31. In war, you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times.
32. In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
33. It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
34. It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
35. It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.
36. It is more agreeable to have the power to give than to receive.
37. It is no use saying, 'We are doing our best.' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.
38. Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.
39. Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
40. My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.
41. My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.
42. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
43. No crime is so great as daring to excel.
44. No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.
45. No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.
46. Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.
47. One does not leave a convivial party before closing time.
48. Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.
49. Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
50. Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.
51. Politics is 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.
52. Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.
53. Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
54. Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.
55. Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.
56. Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
57. Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
58. The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
59. 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.
60. The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
61. The great defense against the air menace is to attack the enemy's aircraft as near as possible to their point of departure.
62. The power of an air force is terrific when there is nothing to oppose it.
63. The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.
64. 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.
65. The short words are best, and the old words are the best of all.
66. The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.
67. There is no such thing as a good tax.
68. These are not dark days: these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived.
69. This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.
70. Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.
71. To improve is to change to be perfect is to change often.
72. War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can.
73. War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.
74. We do not covet anything from any nation except their respect.
75. We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.
76. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
77. We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
78. 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.
79. We shape our buildings thereafter they shape us.
80. When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.
81. When the war of the giants is over the wars of the pygmies will begin.
82. When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.
83. Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.
84. You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.