Winston Churchill Quotes

639 Sourced Quotes

Most wars in history have been avoided simply by postponing them.

Winston Churchill
The salvation of the common people of every race and of every land from war or servitude must be established on solid foundations and must be guarded by the readiness of all men and women to die rather than submit to tyranny.

Winston Churchill
I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.

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
As far as I can see you have used every cliché except 'God is Love' and 'Please adjust your dress before leaving.'
Churchill had returned a long-winded memorandum to Anthony Eden with this note

Winston Churchill
We ought to have saints' days to commemorate the great discoveries which have been made for all mankind, and perhaps for all time-or for whatever time may be left to us. Nature... is a prodigal of pain. I should like to find a day when we can take a holiday, a day of jubilation when we can fête good Saint Anaesthesia and chaste and pure Saint Antiseptic.... I should be bound to celebrate, among others, Saint Penicillin...

Winston Churchill
I do think unpunctuality is a vile habit, and all my life I have tried to break myself of it.

Winston Churchill
I think 'No Comment' is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again.

Winston Churchill
No one can understand history without continually relating the long periods which are constantly mentioned to the experiences of our own short lives. Five years is a lot. Twenty years is the horizon to most people. Fifty years is antiquity. To understand how the impact of destiny fell upon any generation of men one must first imagine their position and then apply the time-scale of our own lives.

Winston Churchill
Their horse cavalry, of which they had twelve brigades, charged valiantly against the swarming tanks and armoured cars but could not harm them with their swords and lances.

Winston Churchill
I have been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who get drunk.

Winston Churchill
It would be a great reform in politics if wisdom could be made to spread as easily and as rapidly as folly.

Winston Churchill
Laws just or unjust may govern men's actions. Tyrannies may restrain or regulate their words. The machinery of propaganda may pack their minds with falsehood and deny them truth for many generations of time. But the soul of man thus held in trance or frozen in a long night can be awakened by a spark coming from God knows where and in a moment the whole structure of lies and oppression is on trial for its life.

Winston Churchill
The enemy is still proud and powerful. He is hard to get at. He still possesses enormous armies, vast resources, and invaluable strategic territories...No one can tell what new complications and perils might arise in four or five more years of war. And it is in the dragging-out of the war at enormous expense, until the democracies are tired or bored or split that the main hopes of Germany and Japan must reside.

Winston Churchill
Nowadays we are assailed by a chorus of horrid threats. The Nazi government exudes through every neutral state inside information about the frightful vengeance they are going to wreak upon us, and they also bawl it around the world by their propaganda machinery. If words could kill, we shall be dead already.

Winston Churchill
You might however consider whether you should not unfold as a background the great privilege of habeas corpus and trial by jury, which are the supreme protection invented by the English people for ordinary individuals against the state. The power of the Executive to cast a man in prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government, whether Nazi or Communist.

Winston Churchill
I wrote my name at the top of the page. I wrote down the number of the question, '1.' After much reflection I put a bracket round it, thus, '(1).' But thereafter I could not think of anything connected with it that was either relevant or true... It was from these slender indications of scholarship that Mr. Welldon [the headmaster] drew the conclusion that I was worthy to pass into Harrow. It is very much to his credit. It showed a man capable of looking beneath the surface of things.

Winston Churchill
It excites world wonder in the Parliamentary countries that we should build a Chamber, starting afresh, which can only seat two-thirds of its Members. It is difficult to explain this to those who do not know our ways. They cannot easily be made to understand why we consider that the intensity, passion, intimacy, informality and spontaneity of our Debates constitute the personality of the House of Commons and endow it at once with its focus and its strength.

Winston Churchill
I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

Winston Churchill
How fortunate it was for the world that when these great trials came upon it there was a generation that terror could not conquer and brutal violence could not enslave.

Winston Churchill
Whatever one may think about democratic government, it is just as well to have practical experience of its rough and slatternly foundations. No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.

Winston Churchill
When the next year the raiders returned and landed near Jarrow they were stoutly attacked while harassed by bad weather. Many were killed. Their "king" was captured and put to a cruel death, and the fugitives carried so grim a tale back to Denmark that for forty years the English coasts were unravaged.

Winston Churchill
The loyalties which centre upon number one are enormous. If he trips he must be sustained. If he makes mistakes they must be covered. If he sleeps he must not be wantonly disturbed. If he is no good he must be pole-axed. But this last extreme process cannot be carried out every day; and certainly not in the days just after he has been chosen.

Winston Churchill
Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.

Winston Churchill
A number of social problems arose. I had been told that neither smoking nor alcoholic beverages were allowed in the [Saudi] Royal Presence. As I was the host at luncheon I raised the matter at once, and said to the interpreter that if it was the religion of His Majesty [Ibn Saud] to deprive himself of smoking and alcohol I must point out that my rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them. The King graciously accepted the position. His own cup-bearer from Mecca offered me a glass of water from its sacred well, the most delicious I had ever tasted.

Winston Churchill
There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hope soon to be swept away.

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 think a curse should rest on me — because I love this war. I know it's smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment — and yet — I can't help it — I enjoy every second of it.

Winston Churchill
For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all Parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

Winston Churchill
Bessie Braddock: Winston, you're drunk.
Churchill: Bessie, you're ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober.

Winston Churchill