Winston Churchill Quotes

639 Sourced Quotes

When we reflect upon the brutal vices of these salt-water bandits, pirates as shameful as any whom the sea has borne, or recoil from their villainous destruction and cruel deeds, we must also remember the discipline, the fortitude, the comradeship and martial virtues which made them at this period beyond all challenge the most formidable and daring race in the world.

Winston Churchill
Politics are almost as exciting as war, and – quite as dangerous … In war, you can only be killed once. But in politics many times.

Winston Churchill
Indeed I do not think we should be justified in using any but the more sombre tones and colours while our people, our Empire, and indeed the whole English-speaking world are passing through a dark and deadly valley.

Winston Churchill
In the past we have had a light which flickered, in the present we have a light which flames, and in the future there will be a light which shines over all the land and sea.

Winston Churchill
The late M. Venizelos observed that in all her wars England—he should have said Britain, of course — always wins one battle—the last.

Winston Churchill
Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt: Put your confidence in us. … 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.

Winston Churchill
The British Empire and the United States will have to be somewhat mixed up together in some of their affairs for mutual and general advantage. For my own part, looking out upon the future, I do not view the process with any misgivings.

Winston Churchill
The picture rises before us vivid and bright: the finely carved, dragon-shaped prow; the high, curving stern; the long row of shields, black and yellow alternately, ranged along the sides; the gleam of steel; the scent of murder.

Winston Churchill
A curious sport whose object is to put a very small ball into a very small hole with implements ill-designed for the purpose.

Winston Churchill
There is not one single social or economic principle or concept in the philosophy of the Russian Bolshevik which has not been realized, carried into action, and enshrined in immutable laws a million years ago by the white ant.

Winston Churchill
The Dark Ages may return on the gleaming wings of Science.

Winston Churchill
Saving is a very fine thing. Especially when your parents have done it for you.

Winston Churchill
But now let me return to my theme of the many changes that have taken place since I was last here. There is a jocular saying: 'To improve is to change; to be perfect is to have changed often.' I had to use that once or twice in my long career.

Winston Churchill
Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because, as has been said, 'it is the quality which guarantees all others.'

Winston Churchill
Governments create nothing and have nothing to give but what they have first taken away — you may put money in the pockets of one set of Englishmen, but it will be money taken from the pockets of another set of Englishmen, and the greater part will be spilled on the way. Every vote given for Protection is a vote to give Governments the right of robbing Peter to pay Paul and charging the public a handsome commission on the job.

Winston Churchill
We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.
Sometimes misquoted as "We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us."

Winston Churchill
If I had been an Italian, I am sure I would have been entirely with you from the beginning to the end of your victorious struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism.

Winston Churchill
[Magna Carta provided] a system of checks and balances which would accord the monarchy its necessary strength, but would prevent its perversion by a tyrant or a fool.

Winston Churchill
Certainly the prolonged education indispensable to the progress of Society is not natural to mankind. It cuts against the grain. A boy would like to follow his father in pursuit of food or prey. He would like to be doing serviceable things so far as his utmost strength allowed. He would like to be earning wages however small to help to keep up the home. He would like to have some leisure of his own to use or misuse as he pleased. He would ask little more than the right to work or starve. And then perhaps in the evenings a real love of learning would come to those who are worthy – and why try to stuff in those who are not? – and knowledge and thought would open the 'magic casements' of the mind.

Winston Churchill
There are men in the world who derive as stern an exaltation from the proximity of disaster and ruin, as others from success.

Winston Churchill
A labour contract into which men enter voluntarily for a limited and for a brief period, under which they are paid wages which they consider adequate…may not be a healthy or proper contract, but it cannot in the opinion of His Majesty's Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude.

Winston Churchill
The maxim 'Nothing avails but perfection' may be spelt shorter: 'Paralysis.'

Winston Churchill
The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame. The world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is some one outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be spread in vain; some one strangely enfranchised, untamed, untrammelled by convention, moving independent of the ordinary currents of human action.

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.

Winston Churchill
[Clement Attlee is] a modest man who has a good deal to be modest about.

Winston Churchill
The stations of uncensored expression are closing down; the lights are going out; but there is still time for those to whom freedom and parliamentary government mean something, to consult together. Let me, then, speak in truth and earnestness while time remains.

Winston Churchill
Bearing ourselves humbly before God … we await undismayed the impending assault … be the ordeal sharp or long, or both, we shall seek no terms, we shall tolerate no parlay; we may show mercy – we shall ask for none.

Winston Churchill
She shone for me like the Evening Star. I loved her dearly — but at a distance.

Winston Churchill
"872, Ivar, King of the Northmen of all Ireland and Britain, ended his life." He had conquered Mercia and East Anglia. He had captured the major stronghold of the kingdom of Strathclyde, Dumbarton. Laden with loot and seemingly invincible, he settled in Dublin and died there peacefully two years later. The pious chroniclers report that he "slept in Christ." Thus it may be that he had the best of both worlds.

Winston Churchill
In war-time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

Winston Churchill