Winston Churchill Quotes

639 Sourced Quotes

You never can tell whether bad luck may not after all turn out to be good luck.

Winston Churchill
Our loyal, brave people … should know the truth. … they should know that we have sustained a defeat without a war, … and that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies; 'Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.' And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proferred to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.

Winston Churchill
We used to be a source of fuel; we are increasingly becoming a sink. These supplies of foreign liquid fuel are no doubt vital to our industry, but our ever-increasing dependence upon them ought to arouse serious and timely reflection. The scientific utilisation, by liquefaction, pulverisation and other processes, or our vast and magnificent deposits of coal, constitutes a national object of prime importance.

Winston Churchill
I have no doubt that the Romans planned the time-table of their days far better than we do. They rose before the sun at all seasons. Except in wartime we never see the dawn. Sometimes we see sunset. The message of sunset is sadness; the message of dawn is hope. The rest and the spell of sleep in the middle of the day refresh the human frame far more than a long night. We were not made by Nature to work, or even play, from eight o'clock in the morning till midnight. We throw a strain upon our system which is unfair and improvident. For every purpose of business or pleasure, mental or physical, we ought to break our days and our marches into two.

Winston Churchill
Frightfulness is not a remedy known to the British Pharmacopaeia.

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.

Winston Churchill
It may also be said that rational, industrious, useful human beings are divided into two classes: first, those whose work is work and whose pleasure is pleasure; and secondly, those whose work and pleasure are one.

Winston Churchill
Everybody has always underrated the Russians. They keep their own secrets alike from foe and friends.

Winston Churchill
Here life itself, life at its best and healthiest, awaits the caprice of the bullet. Let us see the development of the day. All else may stand over, perhaps for ever. Existence is never so sweet as when it is at hazard.

Winston Churchill
In Russia a man is called reactionary if he objects to having his property stolen and his wife and children murdered.

Winston Churchill
We shall go forward together. The road upwards is stony. There are upon our journey dark and dangerous valleys through which we have to make and fight our way. But it is sure and certain that if we persevere - and we shall persevere - we shall come through these dark and dangerous valleys into a sunlight broader and more genial and more lasting than mankind has ever known.

Winston Churchill
We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.

Winston Churchill
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'.

Winston Churchill
The Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the future of Christian civilization.

Winston Churchill
Do not let us speak of darker days; let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days: these are great days —the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.

Winston Churchill
We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past. We must look to the future. We cannot afford to drag forward cross the years that are to come the hatreds and revenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past.

Winston Churchill
We are waiting for the long-promised invasion. So are the fishes.

Winston Churchill
By noon it was clear that the Socialists would have a majority. At luncheon my wife said to me, 'It may well be a blessing in disguise.' I replied, 'At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised.'

Winston Churchill
The tired parts of the mind can be rested and strengthened not merely by rest, but by using other parts.

Winston Churchill
When the mouse is away the cats might play.
About whether Attlee would go to America about the financial crisis

Winston Churchill
You are a small exclamation mark at the end of a very long and insignificant sentence in the book of history.

Winston Churchill
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.

Winston Churchill
[America] is a very great country, my dear Jack, not pretty or romantic but great and utilitarian.

Winston Churchill
It is in the interest of the wage-earner to have many other alternatives open to him than service under one all-powerful employer called the State

Winston Churchill
In my experience of large enterprises, I have found it is often a mistake to try to settle everything at once.

Winston Churchill
We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.

Winston Churchill
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.

Winston Churchill
When one is in office one has no idea how damnable things can feel to the ordinary rank and file of the public.

Winston Churchill
The first duty of a university is to teach wisdom, not trade; character, not technicalities.

Winston Churchill
We know enough to be sure that the scientific achievements of the next fifty years will be far greater, more rapid, and more surprising, than those we have already experienced.... Wireless telephones and television, following naturally upon the their present path of development, would enable their owner to connect up to any room similarly equipped and hear and take part in the conversation as well as if he put his head in through the window.

Winston Churchill