Winston Churchill Quotes

639 Sourced Quotes

One would have thought that if there was one cause in the world which the Conservative party would have hastened to defend, it would be the cause of the British Empire in India... Our fight is hard. It will also be long... But win or lose, we must do our duty. If the British people are to lose their Indian Empire, they shall do so with their eyes open.

Winston Churchill
Why should there not be a European group which could give a sense of enlarged patriotism and common citizenship to the distracted peoples of this turbulent and mighty continent? And why should it not take its rightful place with other great groupings and help to shape the onward destinies of men?

Winston Churchill
Let us reconcile ourselves to the mysterious rhythm of our destinies, such as they must be in this world of space and time.

Winston Churchill
There is scarcely anything more important in the government of men than the exact - I will ever say pedantic - observance of the regular forms by which the guilt or innocence of accused persons is determined.

Winston Churchill
We must have a better word than "prefabricated", why not "ready-made"?

Winston Churchill
The cultivation of a hobby and new forms of interest is a policy of first importance to a public man.

Winston Churchill
We are really doing our very best. There are no doubt many mistakes and shortcomings. A lot of things are done none too well. Some things that ought to be done have not yet been done...[But Britain's effort has] justly commanded the wonder and admiration of every friendly nation in the world.

Winston Churchill
No socialist government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp or violently worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanly directed in the first instance.

Winston Churchill
The American Constitution declares 'All men are born equal.' The British Socialist Party add: 'All men must be kept equal'.

Winston Churchill
The dictator, in all his pride, is held in the grip of his party machine. He can go forward; he cannot go back. He must blood his hounds and show them sport, or else, like Actaeon of old, be devoured by them. All-strong without, he is all-weak within.

Winston Churchill
There is no greater mistake than to suppose that platitudes, smooth words, and timid policies offer a path to safety.

Winston Churchill
If you travel the earth, you will find it is largely divided into two classes of people-people who say 'I wonder why such and such is not done" and people who say "Now who is going to prevent me from doing that thing?"

Winston Churchill
A hopeful disposition is not the sole qualification to be a prophet.

Winston Churchill
Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.

Winston Churchill
Any clever person can make plans for winning a war if he has no responsibility for carrying them out.

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

Winston Churchill
Hasty work and premature decisions may lead to penalties out of all proportion to the issues immediately involved.

Winston Churchill
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.

Winston Churchill
The soul of freedom is deathless; it cannot, and will not perish.

Winston Churchill
Building slow destroyers ! One might as well breed slow race horses.

Winston Churchill
Do not turn the superior eye of critical passivity upon these efforts.... We must not be ambitious. We cannot aspire to masterpieces. We may content ourselves with a joy ride in a paint-box.

Winston Churchill
Now that we are, as you say, 'in the same boat,' would it not be wise for us to have another conference... and the sooner the better.

Winston Churchill
If Europe were once united in the sharing of its common inheritance there would be no limit to the happiness, the prosperity, and the glory which its 300,000,000 or 400,000,000 people would enjoy.

Winston Churchill
The latest refinements of science are linked with the cruelties of the Stone Age.

Winston Churchill
Every offensive lost its force as it proceeded. It was like throwing a bucket of water over the floor. It first rushed forward, then soaked forward, and finally stopped altogether until another bucket could be brought.

Winston Churchill
The Turkish Government began and ruthlessly carried out the infamous massacre and deportation of Armenians in Asia Minor. The clearance of the race from Asia Minor was about as complete as such an act, on a scale so great, could well be.

Winston Churchill
There are no people in the world who are so slow to develop hostile feelings against a foreign country as the Americans, and no people who, once estranged, are more difficult to win back.

Winston Churchill
You cannot ask us to take sides against arithmetic.

Winston Churchill
It is very easy to say that your opponents have been guilty of a breach of faith, but it is a great mistake to splash the paint about so freely that your words cease to have any real meaning and cease to carry any sense of affront even to those to whom they are applied and cease to bear any connection with any genuine feeling of indignation on the part of those on whose behalf they are spoken.

Winston Churchill
With the end of the Victorian era, we passed into what I feel I must call the terrible 20th century

Winston Churchill