Winston Churchill Quotes

639 Sourced Quotes

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

There must not be lacking in our leadership something of that spirit of the Austrian corporal who, when all had fallen into ruins around him, and when Germany seemed to have fallen into chaos, did not hesitate to march forth against the vast army of victorious nations and has already turned the tables decisively against them.

Winston Churchill

I have never promised anything but blood, tears, toil and sweat. Now, however we have a new experience. We have a victory - a remarkable and definite victory. The bright gleam has caught the helmets of our soldiers and warmed and cheered all our hearts.

Winston Churchill

When you have got a thing where you want, it is a good thing to leave it where it is.

Winston Churchill

The high roads of the future will be clear, not only for us but for all, not only for our time but for a century to come.

Winston Churchill

This war proceeds along its terrible path by the slaughter of infantry...I say to myself every day. What is going on while we sit here, while we go away to dinner or home to bed? Nearly, 1000 - Englishmen, Britishers, and the other is America...Everything else is swept away.

Winston Churchill

Free speech carries with it the evil of all foolish, unpleasant venomous things that are said but, on the whole, we would rather lump them than do away with them.

Winston Churchill

Twice in my lifetime the long arm of destiny has reached across the oceans and involved the entire life and manhood of the United States in a deadly struggle.There was no use in saying We don't want it; we won

Winston Churchill

My hope is that the generous instincts of unity will not depart from us...[so that we] become the prey of the little folk who exist in every country and who frolic alongside the Juggernaut car of war to see what fun or notoriety they can extract from the proceedings.

Winston Churchill

I have worked very hard with Nehru. I told him he should be the light of Asia, to show all those millions how they can shine out, instead of accepting the darkness of Communism.

Winston Churchill