Winston Churchill Quotes

639 Sourced Quotes

The maxim of the British people is "Business as usual."

Winston Churchill

Thus I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence, which is a noble thing.

Winston Churchill

I do not presume to explain how to paint, but only how to get enjoyment.

Winston Churchill

Life is a test and this world a place of trial. Always the problems - or it may be the same problem - will be presented to every generation in different forms.

Winston Churchill

Few people practice what they preach, and no one less so than Mr Bernard Shaw... He is at once an acquisitive capitalist and a sincere Communist.

Winston Churchill

I should have liked to be asked to say what I knew. They always tried to ask what I did not know. When I would have willingly displayed my knowledge, they sought to expose my ignorance. This sort of treatment had only one result: I did not do well in examinations

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.

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

The Almighty in His infinite wisdom did not see fit to create Frenchmen in the image of Englishmen.

Winston Churchill

This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.

Winston Churchill

It is an error to believe that the world began when any particular party or statesman got into office. It has all been going on quite a long time.

Winston Churchill

Apparently, as in so many ancient battles, the beaten side were the victims of misunderstanding and the fate of the day was decided against them before the bulk of the forces realised that a serious engagement had begun. Reserves descended from the hills too late to achieve victory, but in good time to be massacred in the rout.

Winston Churchill

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

Winston Churchill

Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty— never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.

Winston Churchill

It may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a state in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation.

Winston Churchill

Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

Winston Churchill

We are with Europe but not of it. We are linked, not combined. We are interested and associated, not absorbed. And should European statesmen address us in the words that were used of old - Shall I speak for thee to the King or the Captain of the Host? - we should reply with the Shunamite woman: "Nay sir, for we dwell among our own people".

Winston Churchill

You must be prepared for further efforts of mind and body and further sacrifices to great causes, if you are not to fall back into the rut if inertia, the confusion of aim and the craven fear of being great.

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

Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.

Winston Churchill

Mr. Gladstone read Homer for fun, which I thought served him right.

Winston Churchill

I am a child of the House of Commons. I was brought up in my fathers house to believe in democracy. Trust the peoplethat was his message.

Winston Churchill

I accumulated in those years so fine a surplus in the Book of Observance that I have been drawing confidently upon it ever since.

Winston Churchill

I then had one of the three or four long intimate conversations with him which are all I can boast.

Winston Churchill

I am sure it would be sensible to restrict as much as possible the work of these gentlemen, who are capable of doing an immense amount of harm with what may very easily degenerate into charlatanry. The tightest hand should be kept over them, and they should not be allowed to quarter themselves in large numbers among Fighting Services at the public expense.

Winston Churchill