Winston S. Churchill Quotes

All the horrors of all the ages were brought together, and not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them. The mighty educated States involved conceived-not without reason-that their very existence was at stake. Neither peoples nor rulers drew the line at any deed which they thought could help them win. Germany, having let Hell loose, kept well in the van of terror; but she was followed step by step by the desperate and ultimately avenging nations she had assailed. Every outrage against humanity or international law was repaid by reprisals-often of a greater scale and of longer duration. No truce or parley mitigated the strife of the armies. The wounded died between the lines: the dead mouldered into the soil. Merchant ships and neutral ships and hospital ships were sunk on the seas and all on board left to their fate, or killed as they swam. Every effort was made to starve whole nations into submission without regard to age or sex. Cities and monuments were smashed by artillery. Bombs from the air were cast down indiscriminately. Poison gas in many forms stifled or seared the soldiers. Liquid fire was projected upon their bodies. Men fell from the air in flames, or were smothered often slowly in the dark recesses of the sea. The fighting strength of armies was limited only by the manhood of their countries. Europe and large parts of Asia and Africa became one vast battlefield on which after years of struggle not armies but nations broke and ran. When all was over, Torture and Cannibalism were the only expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian States had been able to deny themselves: and they were of doubtful utility.

~ Winston S. Churchill

The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.

~ Winston S. Churchill

In the long years to come, not only will the people of this island but of the world, wherever the bird of freedom chirps in human hearts, look back to what we've done, and they will say 'do not despair, do not yield...march straightforward.

~ Winston S. Churchill

We seek no treasure, we seek no territorial gains, we seek only the right of man to be free; we seek his rights to worship his god, to lead his life in his own way, secure from persecution. As the humble labourer returned from his work when the day is don, and sees the smoke curling upwards from his cottage home in the serene evening sky, we wish him to know that no rat-a-tat of the secret police upon his door will disturb his leisure or interrupt his rest.

~ Winston S. Churchill

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

~ Winston S. Churchill

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

~ Winston S. Churchill

If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.

~ Winston S. Churchill

If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism.(Speech in Rome on 20 January, 1927, praising Mussolini)

~ Winston S. Churchill

To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.

~ Winston S. Churchill

The machinery of propaganda may pack their minds with falsehood and deny them truth for many generations of time. But the soul of man thus held in trance, or frozen in a long night, can be awakened by a spark coming from God knows where, and in a moment the whole structure of lies and oppression is on trial for its life.

~ Winston S. Churchill

When eagles are silent, parrots begin to chatter.

~ Winston S. Churchill

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

~ Winston S. Churchill

Now at this very moment I knew that the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! ... How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care ... We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end ... Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to a powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force.

~ Winston S. Churchill

Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong - these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.

~ Winston S. Churchill

If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.

~ Winston S. Churchill

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be;In “Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat,” his first speech as Prime Minister to the House of Commons May 13, 1940 quoted by Jeffrey R. Holland in “However Long and Hard the Road” BYU Devotional 18 Jan 1983

~ Winston S. Churchill

My wife and I tried to breakfast together, but we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked.

~ Winston S. Churchill

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

~ Winston S. Churchill

You make all kinds of mistakes, but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.

~ Winston S. Churchill

Democracy is more vindictive than cabinets, the wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings.

~ Winston S. Churchill

Of this I am certain, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.

~ Winston S. Churchill

Logic, like science, must be the servant and not the master of man.

~ Winston S. Churchill

If you are going to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.

~ Winston S. Churchill

In every age there comes a time when a leader must come forward to meet the needs of the hour. Therefore, there is no potential leader who does not have the opportunity to make a positive difference in society.

~ Winston S. Churchill

The most frightful of all spectacles is the strength of the civilization without its mercy.

~ Winston S. Churchill

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.

~ Winston S. Churchill

...anger is a waste of energy. Steam which is used to blow off a safety valve would be better used to drive an engine.

~ Winston S. Churchill

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.

~ Winston S. Churchill

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

~ Winston S. Churchill

Well, in war, you can only be killed once. But in politics, many times.

~ Winston S. Churchill

We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us.

~ Winston S. Churchill

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 for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.(Speech in the House of Commons, 11 November 1947)

~ Winston S. Churchill

nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get in the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge, and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man who knows where it hurts is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialized character.

~ Winston S. Churchill

The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.

~ Winston S. Churchill

Here was a place where real things were going on. Here was a scene of vital action. Here was a place where anything might happen. Here was a place where something would certainly happen.

~ Winston S. Churchill

I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

~ Winston S. Churchill

Never give in. 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.

~ Winston S. Churchill

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

~ Winston S. Churchill

It is always more easy to discover and proclaim general principles than to apply them.

~ Winston S. Churchill

Socialism needs to pull down wealth; liberalism seeks to raise up poverty. Socialism would destroy private interests, Liberalism would preserve [them] ... by reconciling them with public right. Socialism would kill enterprise; Liberalism would rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege and preference. Socialism assails the preeminence of the individual; Liberalism seeks ... to build up a minimum standard for the mass. Socialism exalts the rule; Liberalism exalts the man. Socialism attacks capitalism; Liberalism attacks monopoly.

~ Winston S. Churchill