Sir Winston Churchill Quotes

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

A love for tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril.

All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed.

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.

I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents.

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.

It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.

Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.

Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

The price of greatness is responsibility.

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.

There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.

We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.

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.

When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.

Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."

We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire...Give us the tools and we will finish the job.

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.

I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat."

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

So they [the Government] go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.

I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel. He replied, 'Verify your quotations.'

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.

Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt... We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job.

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.

One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'.

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else.

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.

A love of tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril; but the new view must come, the world must roll forward.

Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.