Popular

Browse Popular Topics

Quotes by Sir Winston Churchill

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.
– Sir Winston Churchill
No lover ever studied every whim of his mistress as I did those of President Roosevelt.
– Sir Winston Churchill
No matter how enmeshed a commander becomes in the elaboration of his own thoughts, it is sometimes necessary to take the enemy into account.
– Sir Winston Churchill
No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
– Sir Winston Churchill
One does not leave a convivial party before closing time.
– Sir Winston Churchill
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. Never run away from anything. Never!
– Sir Winston Churchill
Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Play the game for more than you can afford to lose... only then will you learn the game.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Really I feel less keen about the Army every day. I think the Church would suit me better.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Say what you have to say and the first time you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending-sit down.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is - the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiam.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
– Sir Winston Churchill
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.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The first quality that is needed is audacity.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The great defense against the air menace is to attack the enemy's aircraft as near as possible to their point of departure.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The human story does not always unfold like a mathematical calculation on the principle that two and two make four. Sometimes in life they make five or minus three; and sometimes the blackboard topples down in the middle of the sum and leaves the class in disorder and the pedagogue with a black eye.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The latest refinements of science are linked with the cruelties of the Stone Age.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The loyalties which center upon number one are enormous. If he trips, he must be sustained. If he make mistakes, they must be covered. If he sleeps, he must not be wantonly disturbed. If he is no good, he must be pole-axed.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The maxim of the British people is Business as usual.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The monarchy is so extraordinarily useful. When Britain wins a battle she shouts, God save the Queen; when she loses, she votes down the prime minister.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The nose of the bulldog has been slanted backwards so that he can breathe without letting go.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The power of an air force is terrific when there is nothing to oppose it.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The price of greatness is responsibility.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.
– Sir Winston Churchill
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.
– Sir Winston Churchill
The Russians will try all the rooms in a house, enter those that are not locked, and when they come to one that cannot be broken into, they will withdraw and invite you to dine genially that same evening.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Their insatiable lust for power is only equaled by their incurable impotence in exercising it.
– Sir Winston Churchill
There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.
– Sir Winston Churchill
There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.
– Sir Winston Churchill
There is no such thing as a good tax.
– Sir Winston Churchill
There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.
– Sir Winston Churchill
There was unanimous, automatic, unquestioned agreement around our table.
– Sir Winston Churchill
These are not dark days: these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived.
– Sir Winston Churchill
This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.
– Sir Winston Churchill
This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.
– Sir Winston Churchill
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.
– Sir Winston Churchill
To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.
– Sir Winston Churchill
To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
– Sir Winston Churchill
To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.
– Sir Winston Churchill
True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Truth is incontrovertible; malice may attack it and ignorance may deride it; but, in the end; there it is.
– Sir Winston Churchill
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.
– Sir Winston Churchill
War is a catalouge of blunders.
– Sir Winston Churchill
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.
– Sir Winston Churchill
War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.
– Sir Winston Churchill
We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm.
– Sir Winston Churchill
We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.
– Sir Winston Churchill
We have a lot of anxieties, and one cancels out another very often.
– Sir Winston Churchill
We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.
– Sir Winston Churchill
We must beware of needless innovations, especially when guided by logic.
– Sir Winston Churchill
We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
– Sir Winston Churchill
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.
– Sir Winston Churchill
We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.
– Sir Winston Churchill
We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.
– Sir Winston Churchill
We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.
– Sir Winston Churchill
We will have no truce or parlay with you [Hitler], or the grisly gang who work your wicked will. You do your worst - and we will do our best.
– Sir Winston Churchill
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.
– Sir Winston Churchill
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.
– Sir Winston Churchill
When the eagles are silent the parrots begin to jabber.
– Sir Winston Churchill
When the war of the giants is over the wars of the pygmies will begin.
– Sir Winston Churchill
When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.
– Sir Winston Churchill
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
– Sir Winston Churchill
When you took your seat I felt as if a woman had come into my bathroom and I had only the sponge to defend myself.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then 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 out to the public.
– Sir Winston Churchill
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.
– Sir Winston Churchill
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
– Sir Winston Churchill
All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
– Sir Winston Churchill
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.
– Sir Winston Churchill
From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
– Sir Winston Churchill
I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.
– Sir Winston Churchill
I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents.
– Sir Winston Churchill
I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
– Sir Winston Churchill
It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required.
– Sir Winston Churchill
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 realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
– Sir Winston Churchill
There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.
– Sir Winston Churchill
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.
– Sir Winston Churchill
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.
– Sir Winston Churchill
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.'
– Sir Winston Churchill
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.
– Sir Winston Churchill
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.
– Sir Winston Churchill