Winston Churchill Quotes (492 Quotes)

Although present on the occasion, I have no clear recollection of the events leading up to it.

It is not open to the cool bystander ... to set himself up as an impartial judge of events which would never have occurred had he outstretched a helping hand in time.

When you get a thing the way you want it, leave it alone.

If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find we have lost the future.

We are all worms, but I do believe that I am a glow-worm.

All great empires of the future will be empires of the mind.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

To improve is to change. To be perfect is to have changed a lot.

We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.

It is important when you haven't got any ammunition to have a butt on your rifle.

In War Resolution. In Defeat Defiance. In Victory Magnanimity. In Peace Goodwill.

Playing golf is like chasing a quinine pill around a cow pasture.

There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.

Play the game for more than you can afford to lose... only then will you learn the game.

I do not wonder that British youth is in revolt against the morbid doctrine that nothing matters but the equal sharing of miseries that what used to be called the submerged tenth can only be rescued by bringing the other nine-tenths down to their le

A vocabulary of truth and simplicity will be of service throughout your life

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.

When you took your seat I felt as if a woman had come into my bathroom and I had only the sponge to defend myself.

The grass grows green on the battlefield, but never on the scaffold.

The loyalties which center upon number one are enormous. If he trips, he must be sustained. If he make mistakes, they must be covered. If he sleeps, he must not be wantonly disturbed. If he is no good, he must be pole-axed.

I can think of no better step to signalize the inauguration of the National Health service than that a person who so obviously needs psychiatric attention should be among the first of its patients.

Everybody has always underrated the Russians. They keep their own secrets alike from foe and friends.

I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.

We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we were young. The young sow wild oats. The old grow sage.

When the war of the giants is over the wars of the pygmies will begin.

My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right.

When I warned them (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

My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.

Their worst misfortune was his birth their next worst - his death.

Death came very easily to her. She had lived such an innocent and loving life of service to others and held such a simple faith, that she had no fears at all and did not seem to mind very much.

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

Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.

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

I had a feeling once about Mathematics that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me the Byss and Abyss. I saw as one might see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor's Show a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly why it happened and why the tergiversation was inevitable but it was after dinner and I let it go.

Like the Mississippi, it just keeps rolling along. Let it roll. Let it roll on full flood, inexorable, irresistible, benignant, to broader lands and better days.

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.

There are few virtues which the Poles do not possess and there are few errors they have ever avoided.

No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

Success is bounding from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.

On the night of the 10th of May 1940, at the outset of this mighty battle, I acquired the chief power in the State, which henceforth I wielded in ever-growing measure for five years and three months of world war, at the end of which time, all our enemies having surrendered unconditionally or being about to do so, I was immediately dismissed by the British electorate from all further conduct of their affairs.

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.

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities - but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.

Where does the family start It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl - no superior alternative has yet been found.

I think 'No comment' is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again. I got it from Sumner Welles. To reporters at the Washington airport, after conferring with President Truman at the White House, February 12, 1946

I have always considered that the substitution of the internal combustion engine for the horse marked a very gloomy milestone in the progress of mankind.

Nothing will bring American sympathy along with us so much as American blood shed in the field