Winston Churchill - People Quotes

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Everyone is in favour of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage

Winston Churchill
We should lay aside every hindrance and endeavour by uniting the whole force and spirit of our people to raise again a great British nation standing up before all the world; for such a nation, rising in its ancient vigour, can even at this hour save civilization.

Winston Churchill
I had been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who got drunk – and I would have liked to have the boozing scholars of the Universities wheeled into line and properly chastised for their squalid misuse of what I must ever regard as a gift of the gods.

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
The people of Asia were slaves, because they had not learned how to pronounce the word 'no'.

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

Winston Churchill
I am very glad there are quite a number of people born with a gift and a liking for all of this; like great chessplayers who play sixteen games at once blindfold and die quite soon of epilepsy. Serve them right! I hope the Mathematicians, however, are well rewarded. I promise never to blackleg their profession nor take the bread out of their mouths.

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
It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future. Still, I avow my hope and faith, sure and inviolate, that in the days to come the British and American peoples will for their own safety and for the good of all walk together side by side in majesty, in justice, and in peace.

Winston Churchill
The British people are good all through. You can test them as you would put a bucket into the sea and always find it salt.

Winston Churchill
The people of London with one voice would say to Hitler: 'You have committed every crime under the sun…We will have no truce or parley with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will. You do your worst—and we will do our best.'

Winston Churchill
What kind of people do they [the Japanese] think we are?

Winston Churchill
I am going to tell you something you must not tell to any human being. We have split the atom. The report of the great experiment has just come in. A bomb was let off in some wild spot in New Mexico. It was only a thirteen-pound bomb, but it made a crater half a mile across. People ten miles away lay with their feet towards the bomb; when it went off they rolled over and tried to look at the sky. But even with the darkest glasses it was impossible. It was the middle of the night, but it was as if seven suns had lit the earth; two hundred miles away the light could be seen. The bomb sent up smoke into the stratosphere... It is the Second Coming. The secret has been wrested from nature... Fire was the first discovery; this is the second.

Winston Churchill
I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.

Winston Churchill
Goodnight then: sleep to gather strength for the morning. For the morning will come. Brightly will it shine on the brave and true, kindly upon all who suffer for the cause, glorious upon the tombs of heroes. Thus will shine the dawn. Vive la France! Long live also the forward march of the common people in all the lands towards their just and true inheritance, and towards the broader and fuller age.

Winston Churchill
I must point out … that the British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst, and like to be told that they are very likely to get much worse in the future and must prepare themselves for further reverses.

Winston Churchill
Indeed I do not think we should be justified in using any but the more sombre tones and colours while our people, our Empire, and indeed the whole English-speaking world are passing through a dark and deadly valley.

Winston Churchill
I trust and believe that this College, this seed that we have sown, will grow to shelter and nurture generations who may add most notably to the strength and happiness of our people, and to the knowledge and peaceful progress of the world. 'The mighty oak from an acorn towers; A tiny seed can fill a field with flowers.'

Winston Churchill
Why should I accept the Order of the Garter from His Majesty when the people have just given me the order of the boot?
After his election defeat in 1945, he was offered the Order of the Garter, which he refused with this remark

Winston Churchill
Vast and fearsome as the human scene has become, personal contact of the right people, in the right places, at the right time, may yet have a potent and valuable part to play in the cause of peace which is in our hearts.

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
First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other. Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned.

Winston Churchill
The Russians will sweep through your country and your people will be liquidated. You are on the verge of annihiliation.

Winston Churchill
I have never accepted what many people have kindly said - namely that I inspired the nation. Their will was resolute and remorseless, and as it proved, unconquerable. It fell to me to express it.

Winston Churchill
I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.

Winston Churchill
Like a sea-beast fished up from the depths, or a diver too suddenly hoisted, my veins threatened to burst from the fall in pressure. I had great anxiety and no means of relieving it... And then it was that the Muse of Painting came to my rescue - out of charity and out of chivalry... - and said, "Are these toys any good to you? They amuse some people."

Winston Churchill
Neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organisation will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples. This means a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States

Winston Churchill
It becomes still more difficult to reconcile Japanese action with prudence or even with sanity. What kind of a people do they think we are?

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
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