Winston Churchill Quotes (492 Quotes)

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

We have a lot of anxieties, and one cancels out another very often.

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

Writing a long and substantial book is like having a friend and companion at your side, to whom you can always turn for comfort and amusement, and whose society becomes more attractive as a new and widening field of interest.

Always remember, a cat looks down on man, a dog looks up to man, but a pig will look man right in the eye and see his equal.

I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and this trial.

There was unanimous, automatic, unquestioned agreement around our table.

The destiny of mankind is not decided by material computation. When great causes are on the move in the world ... we learn that we are spirits, not animals, and that something is going on in space and time, and beyond space and time, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.

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.

Some people's idea of free speech is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.

Thoughtless, dilettante or purblind wordlings sometimes ask us What is it that Britain and France are fighting for To this I answer If we left off fighting, you would soon find out.

Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.

The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.

The length of this document defends it well against the risk of its being read.

It is not alone that property, in all its forms, is struck at, but that liberty, in all its forms, is challenged by the fundamental conceptions of Socialism

We do not covet anything from any nation except their respect.

It cannot in the opinion of His Majestys Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude.

Nothing would induce me to vote for giving women the franchise. I am not going to be henpecked into a question of such importance.

What kind of people do they the Japanese think we are.

I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

If I was your wife Sir, I'd poison you Madam, if you were my wife, I'd let you

The substance of the eminent Socialist gentleman's speech is that making a profit is a sin, but it is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss.

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

Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.

Beware the sleeping dragon. For when she awakes the Earth will shake On China.

If you destroy a free market, you create a black market.

You and I must take care not to lose the next war.

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 shall defend every village, every town and every city. The vast mass of London itself, fought street by street, could easily devour an entire hostile army and we would rather see London laid in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved.

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

It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.

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

The V sign is the symbol of the unconquerable will of the occupied territories, and a portent of the fate awaiting the Nazi tyranny.

It would be a great reform in politics if wisdom could be made to spread as easily and rapidly as folly.

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.

When I warned the French that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their prime minister and his divided cabinet, 'In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken.' Some chicken some neck.

We are waiting for the long-promised invasion. So are the fishes.

Never yield to force never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it.

The Battle of Britain.... The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the was.... Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth, last for a thousand years, man will say, 'This was their finest hour.'

The surest road to health, say what they will, Is never to suppose we shall be ill Most of those evils we poor mortals know, From doctors and imagination flow.

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 first quality that is needed is audacity.

In war you do not have to be nice -- you only have to be right.

Our inheritance of well-founded, slowly conceived codes of honor, morals and manners, the passionate convictions which so many hundreds of millions share together of the principles of freedom and justice, are far more precious to us than anything which scientific discoveries could bestow.

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'.

Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.

There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction

There is no limit to the ingenuity of man if it is properly and vigorously applied under conditions of peace and justice.

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.