Winston Churchill Quotes

in his initial speech as Prime Minister to the House of Commons (10 May 1940)

"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations"
- Winston Churchill: My Early Life (1930) 

"Never in the face of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few."
- Winston Churchill

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."
- Prime Minister Winston Churchill (about the Royal Air Force)

 (both quotations are correct, but said at different occasions)

"In Critical and baffling situations, it is always best to return to first principle and simple action"
- Sir Winston S. Churchill

“it so often happens that, when men are convinced that they have to die, a desire to bear themselves well and to leave life’s stage with dignity conquers all other sensations.”
- Sir Winston S. Churchill

"I have never accepted what many people have kindly said, namely that I inspired the Nation. It was the nation and the race dwelling around the globe that had the lion heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar"
- Sir Winston Churchill, Speech Nov. 1954.

"There is at least one thing worse than fighting with allies – And that is to fight without them"
- Sir Winston S. Churchill

"The power of an air force is terrific when there is nothing to oppose it."
- Winston Churchill

"Democracy is the best form of the worst type of government"
- Winston Churchill

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get
its pants on. "
- Winston Churchill

"Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because it is the quality that guarantees all others"
- Sir Winston S. Churchill

"A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him."
- Sir Winston S. Churchill, 1952. (The Observer)

No matter how enmeshed a commander becomes in the elaboration of his own thoughts, it is sometimes necessary to take the enemy into account.
- Winston Churchill

"The Americans will always do the right thing... After they've exhausted all the alternatives."
- Winston Churchill

"Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valor, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar."
- Prime Minister Winston Churchill

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."
- Sir Winston Churchill

 

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 Churchill

 

"We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the 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, will carry on the struggle until in God's good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old."
- Prime Minister Winston Churchill (after the fall of France)

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
- Prime Minister Winston Churchill

 

"You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all terrors. Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival."
- Prime Minister Winston Churchill

 

"To have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. Now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all!...Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder."
- Prime Minister Winston Churchill (after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor)

"You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war."
Churchill's remark after Chamberlain returned from signing the Munich pact with Hitler

and

"Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor."
- Prime Minister Winston Churchill

"Sure I am this day we are masters of our fate, that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win, victory will not be denied us."
- Winston Churchill

 

"We shall not flag or fail. 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 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."
- Winston Churchill

 

"Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter."
- Winston Churchill

 

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

 

It's no use saying, ''We are doing our best.'' You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.
- Winston Churchill

 

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

 

I never worry about action, but only inaction.
- Winston Churchill We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we were young. The young sow wild oats. The old grow sage.
- Winston Churchill 

 

No two on earth in all things can agree. All have some daring singularity.
- Winston Churchill 

 

I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.
- Winston Churchill 

 

I have been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who get drunk.
- Winston 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 Churchill 

 

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

 

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

 

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.
 - Winston Churchill 

 

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
- Winston Churchill 

 

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.
 - Winston Churchill

It is more agreeable to have the power to give than to receive.
- Winston Churchill

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

Socialism is like a dream. Sooner or later you wake up to reality.
- Winston Churchill 

 

Socialists think profits are a vice; I consider losses the real vice.
- Winston Churchill 

 

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

 

Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
- Winston Churchill 

 

This is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.
- Winston Churchill 

 

Nothing is so exhilarating in life as to be shot at with no result.
 - Winston Churchill 

 

I am ready to meet my maker, but whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
- Winston Churchill 

 

No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.
- Winston Churchill 

 

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles with it.
- Winston Churchill 

 

I was not the lion, but it fell to me to give the lion's roar.
- Winston Churchill

"There is nothing so pleasing as to be shot at by one’s enemy without result."
- Winston Churchill

"Give us the tools, and we will finish the job"
- Churchill, in a broadcast addressed to Roosevelt in 1941

"It has not fallen to your lot to command great armies. You had to create them, organize them and inspire them."
- Churchill to General George Marshall 1945

 

"We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general."
- Churchill about Rommel

You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.
-Winston Churchill

In War: Resolution In Defeat: Defiance In Victory: Magnanimity In Peace: Good Will
-Winston Churchill quotes

If, however, there is to be a war of nerves let us make sure our nerves are strong and are fortified by the deepest convictions of our hearts.
-Winston Churchill quotes

Little did we guess that what has been called the century of the common man would witness as its outstanding feature more common men killing each other with greater facilities than any other five centuries together in the history of the world.
-Winston Churchill quotes

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