Quotes by Winston Churchill
Welcome to our collection of quotes (with shareable picture quotes) by Winston Churchill. We hope you enjoy pondering them and that you will share them widely.
Wikipedia Summary for Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Although best known for his wartime leadership as Prime Minister, Churchill was also a Sandhurst-educated soldier, a Nobel Prize-winning writer and historian, a prolific painter, and one of the longest-serving politicians in British history. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955, though he was also a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.
Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire to a wealthy, aristocratic family. He joined the British Army in 1895 and saw action in British India, the Anglo-Sudan War, and the Second Boer War, gaining fame as a war correspondent and writing books about his campaigns. Elected a Conservative MP in 1900, he defected to the Liberals in 1904. In H. H. Asquith's Liberal government, Churchill served as President of the Board of Trade and Home Secretary, championing prison reform and workers' social security.
As First Lord of the Admiralty during the First World War, he oversaw the Gallipoli Campaign but, after it proved a disaster, he was demoted to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He resigned in November 1915 and joined the Royal Scots Fusiliers on the Western Front for six months. In 1917, he returned to government under David Lloyd George and served successively as Minister of Munitions, Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air, and Secretary of State for the Colonies, overseeing the Anglo-Irish Treaty and British foreign policy in the Middle East. After two years out of Parliament, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government, returning the pound sterling in 1925 to the gold standard at its pre-war parity, a move widely seen as creating deflationary pressure and depressing the UK economy.
Out of government during his so-called "wilderness years" in the 1930s, Churchill took the lead in calling for British rearmament to counter the growing threat of militarism in Nazi Germany. At the outbreak of the Second World War he was re-appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. In May 1940, he became Prime Minister, replacing Neville Chamberlain. Churchill oversaw British involvement in the Allied war effort against the Axis powers, resulting in victory in 1945. After the Conservatives' defeat in the 1945 general election, he became Leader of the Opposition. Amid the developing Cold War with the Soviet Union, he publicly warned of an "iron curtain" of Soviet influence in Europe and promoted European unity. He lost the 1950 election, but was returned to office the following year in the 1951 election. His second term was preoccupied with foreign affairs, especially Anglo-American relations and preservation of the British Empire. Domestically, his government emphasised house-building and developed a nuclear weapon. In declining health, Churchill resigned as Prime Minister in 1955, although he remained an MP until 1964. Upon his death in 1965, he received a state funeral.
Widely considered one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Churchill remains popular in the UK and Western world, where he is seen as a victorious wartime leader who played an important role in defending Europe's liberal democracy against the spread of fascism. He is also praised as a social reformer. However, he has been criticised for some wartime events – notably the 1945 bombing of Dresden – and also for his imperialist views, including comments on race.
The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
We shall never surrender.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
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 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.
It is a fine game to play -- the game of politics -- and it is well worth waiting for a good hand before really plunging.
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.'

Truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it and ignorance may deride it, but, in the end, there it is.

They are decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

Danger, if met head on, can be nearly halved.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
Danger -- if you meet it promptly and without flinching -- you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

We The British have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.

When I was younger I made it a rule never to take a strong drink before lunch. Now it is my rule never to do so before breakfast.

This is the lesson: Never give in ... never, never, never, never... in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in except to convictions of honor or good taste.

I neither want it Brandy nor need it, but I should think it pretty hazardous to interfere with the ineradicable habit of a lifetime.

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.

Smoking cigars is like falling in love; first you are attracted to its shape; you stay with it for its flavour; and you must always remember never, never let the flame go out.

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.

We would rather see London laid in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved.

The United States is like giant boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it, there is no limit to the power it can generate.

Writing ... it begins as an amusement, then it becomes a mistress, then a master, and finally a tyrant.

Much as war attracts me and fascinates my mind with its tremendous situations, I feel more deeply every year ... what vile and wicked folly and barbarism it all is.

This beginning with Audacity, or being thrown into the middle of it, is already a very great part of the art of painting.

For the first time I heard shots fired in anger, heard bullets strike flesh or whistle through the air.

Do you know why the nose of the bull dog is sloped backwards? So it can keep on breathing without ever letting go.

I have not become the Kings First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.

Christopher Columbus was the first socialist: he didn't know where he was going, he didn't know where he was? and he did it all at taxpayers expense.

A world united is better than a world divided, but a world divided is better than a world destroyed.

The only way a man can remain consistent amid changing circumstances is to change with them while preserving the same dominating purpose.

I never slept as soundly as the night following Pearl Harbor. For I knew that The American Race would now be entering the war and it would never be the same.

Americans are a wonderful people: They will always do the right thing -- after exhausting every other possible alternative.

In Franklin Roosevelt there died the greatest American friend we have ever known -- and the greatest champion of freedom who has ever brought help and comfort from the New World to the Old.

Say what you have to say and the first time you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending -- sit down.

In Great Britain, governments often change their policies without changing their men. In France, they usually change their men without changing their policy.

I would tell myself that I was about to address the largest mass assembly of idiots ever gathered in the history of mankind.

Don't deliver an essay with so many points. No one can absorb it. Just say one thing... Of course, you can say the point in many different ways over and over again with different illustrations.

We see nothing but good and hope in a richer, freer, more contented European commonalty. But we have our own dreams and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not comprised. We are interested and associated, but not absorbed.

Perfecting and selling your writing is a lifelong task. If you are a persistent writer, you can expect your abilities to improve with time. Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.

It is no use dealing with illusions and make-believes. We must look at the facts. The world ... is too dangerous for anyone to be able to afford to nurse illusions. We must look at realities.

Curse ruthless time! Curse our mortality. How cruelly short is the allotted span for all we must cram into it!

Of all the talents bestowed upon men, none is so precious as the gift of oratory. He who enjoys it wields a power more durable than that of a great king. He is an independent force in the world.

It is one thing to see the forward path and another to be able to take it. But it is better to have an ambitious plan than none at all.

If, however, there is to be a war of nerves let us make sure our nerves are strong and are fortified by the deepest convictions of our hearts.

We were not made by Nature to work, or even to play, from eight o'clock in the morning till midnight. We ought to break our days and our marches into two.

A heightened sense of the observation of nature is one of the chief delights that have come to me through trying to paint.

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.

It is easier to give directions than advice, and more agreeable to have the right to act, even in a limited sphere, than the privilege to talk at large.

Our free trade plan is quite simple. We say that every citizen shall have the right to buy whatever he wants, wherever he wants, at his own good pleasure, without restriction or discouragement from the state.

I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British instead of the other way around, I might have gotten here on my own.

They said it was only a ground shark; but I was not wholly reassured. It is as bad to be eaten by a ground shark as by any other.

Most of the significant contributions that have been made to society have been made by people who were tired.

Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely. No socialist system can be established without a political police.

I am weary of a task which is done and I hope I shall not shrink when the aftermath ends. My only wish is to live peacefully out the remaining years -- if years they be.

There is a good saying to the effect that when a new book appears one should read an old one. As as author I would not recommend too strict an adherence to this saying.

The is always much to be said for not attempting more than you can do and for making a certainty of what you try. But this principle, like others in life and war, has it exceptions.

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.

I do not hold that we should rearm in order to fight. I hold that we should rearm in order to parley.

Everything trends towards catastrophe and collapse. I am interested, geared up and happy. Is it not horrible to be built like that?

I propose that 100,000 degenerate Britons should be forcibly sterilized and others put in labour camps to halt the decline of the British race.

The British people are good all through. You can test them as you would put a bucket into the sea and always find it salt.

There is no sphere of human thought in which it is easier to show superficial cleverness and the appearance of superior wisdom than in discussing questions of currency and exchange.

Science bestowed immense new powers on man, and at the same time, created conditions which were largely beyond his comprehension.

Socialism would gather all power to the supreme party and party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of civil servants no longer servants, no longer civil.

Civilisation will not last, freedom will not survive, peace will not be kept, unless a very large majority of mankind unite together to defend them and show themselves possessed of a constabulary power before which barbaric and atavistic forces will stand in awe.

If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty, you have no brain.

You may take the most gallant sailor, the most intrepid airman, or the most audacious soldier, put them at a table together- what do you get? The sum of their fears.

I think it would be so much better for me to learn something which would be useful to me in the army, as well as affording me exercise and amusement.

When I look round to see how we can win the war, I see that there is only one sure path ... and that is absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from this country upon the Nazi homeland.

The influence exercised over the human mind by apt analogies is and has always been immense. Whether they translate an established truth into simple language or whether they adventurously aspire to reveal the unknown, they are among the most formidable weapons of the rhetorician.

The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it. The fighters are our salvation, but the bombers alone provide the means of victory.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it. Therefore our supreme effort must be to gain overwhelming mastery in the Air. The Fighters are our salvation ... but the Bombers alone provide the means of victory... In no other way at present visible can we hope to overcome the immense military power of Germany.

Today I may way before an awestruck world; I am still master of my fate. I am still captain of my soul.

The game of life does not proceed like a mathematical calculation on the principle that two and two make four. Sometimes they make five, or minus four, and sometimes the blackboard topples over in the middle of the sum and the pedagogue is left with a black eye.

It is not open to the cool bystander ... to set himself up as an impartial judge of events which would never have occurred had he outstretched a helping hand in time.

I get my exercise being a pallbearer for those of my friends who believed in regular running and calisthenics.

I could not help reflecting that the bullet which had struck the chestnut horse had certainly passed within a foot of my head. So at any rate I had been 'under fire.' That was something.

Woe betide the leaders now perched on their dizzy pinnacles of triumph if they cast away at the conference table what the soldiers had won on a hundred bloodsoaked battlefields.

In battles two things are usually required of the Commander-in-Chief: to make a good plan for his army and, secondly, to keep a strong reserve.

The substance of the eminent Socialist gentlemen's speech is that making a profit is a sin. It is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss!

Elderly people and those in authority cannot always be relied upon to take enlightened and comprehending views of what they call the indiscretions of youth.

Fancy cutting down all those beautiful trees...to make pulp for those bloody newspapers, and calling it civilisation.

When we judge or criticize another person, it says nothing about that person; it merely says something about our own need to be critical.

And what a plan! This vast operation is undoubtedly the most complicated and difficult that has ever occurred.

The one who cannot see that on Earth a big endeavor is taking place, an important plan, on which realization we are allowed to collaborate as faithful servants, certainly has to be blind.

Let the children have their night of fun and laughter, let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play. Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
Let the children have their night of fun and laughter. Let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play. Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures before we turn again to the stern task and the formidable years that lie before us, resolved that, by our sacrifice and daring, these same children shall not be robbed of their inheritance or denied their right to live in a free and decent world. Winston Churchill Christmas Eve Message, 1941 as printed in In the Dark Streets Shineth.

I let the argument rip healthily between the departments. This is a very good way to finding out the truth.

Advertising nourishes the consuming power of men. It sets up before a man the goal of a better home, better clothing, better food for himself and his family. It spurs individual exertion and greater production.

It has not fallen to your lot to command great armies. You had to create them, organize them and inspire them.

Have no fear of the future. Let us go forward into its mysteries, tear away the veils which hide it from our eyes, and move onwards with confidence and courage.

There is a place for everyone, man and woman, old and young, hale and halt; service in a thousand forms is open. There is no room now for the dilettante, the weakling, for the shirker, or the sluggard. From the highest to the humblest tasks, all are of equal honor; all have their part to play.

The high roads of the future will be clear, not only for us but for all, not only for our time but for a century to come.

Appeasement is feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear -- I fear greatly -- the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar, even more loudly, even more widely.

The jury system has come to stand for all we mean by English justice. The scrutiny of 12 honest jurors provides defendants and plaintiffs alike a safeguard from arbitrary perversion of the law.

Little did we guess that what has been called the century of the common man would witness as its outstanding feature more common men killing each other with greater facilities than any other five centuries together in the history of the world.

Expert knowledge is limited knowledge.
Longer Version/[Notes]:
Nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get in the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge, and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man who knows where it hurts is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialized character.

Armed with a paint-box, one cannot be bored, one cannot be left at a loose end, one cannot have several days on one's hands.
Quotes by Winston Churchill are featured in:
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