Top 254 Churchill Quotes & Sayings

Churchill's career was littered with oratorical disasters when he misjudged the audience.

Churchill was a good writer but a bad historian.

Adlai Stevenson, himself a notable speaker, often reminisced about his last meeting with Churchill. I asked him on whom or what he had based his oratorical style. Churchill replied, "It was an American statesman who inspired me and taught me how to use every note of the human voice like an organ." Winston then to my amazement started to quote long excerpts from Bourke Cockran's speeches of 60 years before. "He was my model," Churchill said. "I learned from him how to hold thousands in thrall."

I think Churchill would be appalled at the Thatcher government.

The difference between Hitler's speeches and Churchill's speeches was that Hitler made you think he could do anything; Churchill made you think you could do anything.

H. G. Wells was not the only one to mention Churchill and Hitler in the same breath: "Churchill and Hitler are striving to change the nature of their respective countrymen by forcing and hammering violent methods on them. Man may be suppressed in this manner but he cannot be changed. Ahimsa [non-violence in the Hindu tradition], on the other hand, can change human nature and sooner than men like Churchill and Hitler."

He [Winston Churchill] has a future and I have a past, so we should be all right.

The wisdom and spirit of Churchill not only saved Britain from the Third Reich but saved Western civilization from a Nazi Dark Ages when no other nation was willing to take up that defense. Churchill was the greatest military, political and spiritual leader of the 20th century.

Be bold - there's enough Neville Chamberlains in the world; be a Winston Churchill, for crying out loud!

Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill rode to glory on the back of the strong declarative sentence.

Churchill is so particular. He's as different from the rest of the population of Britain as he is from me.

Churchill wrote his own speeches. When a leader does that, he becomes emotionally invested with his utterances...If Churchill had had a speech write in 1940, Britain would be speaking German today.

I teethed on books of heroes such as Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and King David.

There are a few writers that one has a relationship with that means, basically, you do whatever they say. One is Caryl Churchill, and the other is David Hare.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, capitalism is the worst economic system except for all the other forms.

When Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's government fell in May 1940, the nation turned to Churchill. At last, his unique qualities were brought to bear on a supreme challenge, and with his unshakable optimism, his heroic vision, and above all, his splendid speeches, Churchill roused the spirit of the British people.

Speaking of Sir Winston Churchill: He mobilized the English language and sent it into battle.

Climate change is analogous to Lincoln and slavery or Churchill and Nazism: it's not the kind of thing where you can compromise.

Humanity would have plunged into a new dark age of absolutely frightening and appalling characteristics without Churchill.

I think the most important thing that comes out of the meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt in early 1942 is a commitment on Roosevelt's part to fight Europe first. To struggle first against Germany and put Japan and the Pacific as a secondary theatre in the conflict. And this is what Churchill was after.

Boris Johnson is nothing like Winston Churchill.

I was doing things that weren't good for me. So I checked into the Churchill Priory clinic. It was the best thing I've done for ages.

An old battleax of a woman said to Winston Churchill, "If you were my husband I would put poison in your tea." Churchill's response, "Ma'am if you were my wife I would drink it.

I saw 14 games in two and a half months at Churchill. It was what I really signed for. They were eyeing the championship and also playing the AFC Cup. So I am very thankful for Churchill, the coaching staff and the players.

Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend - if you have one. Telegram inviting Winston Churchill to opening night of Pygmalion. Churchill wired back: Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second - if there is one.

Not Churchill. Sixty-five, old for a Churchill.

Churchill didn't dance around the Nazis; he called it fascism.

Benjamin Netanyahu is no Winston Churchill. Whatever else he, is he's not a Winston Churchill. He basically violated the great rule, which is it's better to mislead the people and to lose an election than to mislead the people and win an election.

My mum is in a mental hospital. There's a fine line between genius and insanity. Winston Churchill, Mozart, John Lennon. These people all had a touch of crazy that fuelled their brilliance. They were not locked up for it like my mum. Pft. Then again, Winston Churchill never tried to kill my dad.

[He stared into the camera] like some sort of an animal gazing from across the back of its sty. (On Winston Churchill)

Gandhi wanted to meet with Churchill, his most bitter foe, when he visited London in 1931- but it didn't happen. Churchill wanted to go to India personally as prime minister in 1942 to negotiate a final settlement on India with Gandhi and the other nationalist leaders - but the fall of Singapore prevented it from happening.

Sexy ain't guys like Churchill and Lincoln.

Winston Churchill is always expecting rabbits to come out of an empty hat.

He [Winston Churchill] is a man suffering from petrified adolescence.

All babies look like Winston Churchill.

What a creature of strange moods [Winston Churchill] is - always at the top of the wheel of confidence or at the bottom of an intense depression.

Winston [Churchill] is the only remaining specimen of a real Tory.

Oh, Mrs. Churchill, do come over, someone has killed father.

Caryl Churchill is a writer of some note, but in the sack, she makes me explain everything.

Unlike Churchill, I have no plans to shape history. . . . Socrates gave advice

Churchill was the canny political animal, very devious, bursting with energy and determination, learning as hard as he could.

I think that perhaps the classic propagandists of the - in the Second World War was Winston Churchill. He was extremely skilled and adept at it.

We flew over to England by the same route Churchill took. It was easy. All we had to do was follow the cigar ashes.

When I became obsessed with Winston Churchill, I wrote a book about Churchill. What a joy it was to write that book!

I'm doing another Churchill. I did a Churchill for HBO and that was up to 1939 and there's talk of the war years. They were going to do it this fall, but the script wasn't going to be ready.

Winston Churchill was like Winston Churchill because of his experiences in life.

Unlike his father, Churchill was not a natural speaker.

Lord Randolph Churchill was the chief mourner at his own protracted funeral.

Winston [ Churchill] is a dandy and a visionary. Unfortunately, in winning wars, principles are inevitably debased. That's politics.

Churchill knew the importance of peace, and he also knew the price of it. Churchill finally got his voice, of course. He stressed strategy, but it was his voice that armed England at last with the old-fashioned moral concepts of honor and duty, justice and mercy.

It is not easy to get rich in Las Vegas, at Churchill Downs, or at the local Merrill Lynch office.

I might paraphrase Churchill and say: never have I received so much for so little.

I love English. I learned it from the speeches of Winston Churchill.

Winston Churchill would be great to have around the table.

We should demonstrate that in war, under Churchill and Lloyd George, and in peace, Britain always was, already is, and can continue to be a leader.

Churchill: "Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?" Socialite: "My goodness, Mr. Churchill... Well, I suppose... we would have to discuss terms, of course... " Churchill: "Would you sleep with me for five pounds?" Socialite: "Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!" Churchill: "Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price

"Mr. Churchill you're drunk!" Mr. Churchill: "And you, Lady Astor, are ugly. As for my condition, it will pass by the morning. You, however, will still be ugly.

The people of England will curse themselves for having preferred ruin from Churchill to peace from Hitler.

I'm the American Winston Churchill.

Winston Churchill could not definitely remember a time when his country had not been at war.