Top 1291 Quotes & Sayings by Winston Churchill - Page 3
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British statesman Winston Churchill.
Last updated on September 18, 2024.
It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.
We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.
Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.
We occasionally stumble over the truth but most of us pick ourselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
My wife and I tried two or three times in the last 40 years to have breakfast together, but it was so disagreeable we had to stop.
Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.
Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed.
The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.
When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.
The great defense against the air menace is to attack the enemy's aircraft as near as possible to their point of departure.
When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.
The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.
I always seem to get inspiration and renewed vitality by contact with this great novel land of yours which sticks up out of the Atlantic.
No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.
In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.
The first quality that is needed is audacity.
Baldwin thought Europe was a bore, and Chamberlain thought it was only a greater Birmingham.
Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.
I was only the servant of my country and had I, at any moment, failed to express her unflinching resolve to fight and conquer, I should at once have been rightly cast aside.
We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed to forget the feuds of a thousand years.
If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another.
Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.
I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place.
We do not covet anything from any nation except their respect.
In those days he was wiser than he is now; he used to frequently take my advice.
I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting.
It is a fine game to play - the game of politics - and it is well worth waiting for a good hand before really plunging.
I have never developed indigestion from eating my words.
I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.
No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.
Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.
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.
Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.
One does not leave a convivial party before closing time.
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.
I have been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who get drunk.
For good or for ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept a subordinate rank.
Really I feel less keen about the Army every day. I think the Church would suit me better.
Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer.
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.
India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the Equator.
Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.
If the Almighty were to rebuild the world and asked me for advice, I would have English Channels round every country. And the atmosphere would be such that anything which attempted to fly would be set on fire.
The short words are best, and the old words are the best of all.
Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.
If it weren't for painting, I wouldn't live; I couldn't bear the extra strain of things.
You can measure a man's character by the choices he makes under pressure.
You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.
Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party
The POSITIVE THINKER sees the INVISIBLE, feels the INTANGIBLE, and achieves the IMPOSSIBLE.
Everyone is in favor 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 else says anything back, that is an outrage.
A nation that forgets its past has no future.
There is nothing government can give you that it hasn't taken from you in the first place.
Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.
When you're 20 you care what everyone thinks, when you're 40 you stop caring what everyone thinks, when you're 60 you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place. You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty, you have no brain.
Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.
I no longer listen to what people say, I just watch what they do. Behavior never lies.
Criticism is easy; achievement is difficult.
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