Winston S. Churchill

“Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and thegospel of envy.”[PERTH, 28 MAY 1948]”

“I don't like mixing up moralities with mathematics.”

“Resposibility is the price of greatness.”

“MacDonald has the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought.”

“A remarkable and definite victory.The bright gleam has caught the helmets of our soldiersand warmed and cheered all our hearts.”

“There are men in the world who derive as stern an exaltation from the proximity of disaster and ruin, as others from success.”

“I hate nobody except Hitler--and that is professional.”

“Perhaps we have been guilty of some terminological inexactitudes.”

“When you have got a thing where you want, it is a good thing to leave it where it is.”

“This is not the end its only the begninning”

“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened”

“Lady Nancy Astor: Winston, if you were my husband, I'd poison your tea.Churchill: Nancy, if I were your husband, I'd drink it.”

“Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”

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

“What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone? How else can we put ourselves in harmonious relation with the great verities and consolations of the infinite and the eternal? And I avow my faith that we are marching towards better days. Humanity will not be cast down. We are going on swinging bravely forward along the grand high road and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the sun.”

“The optimist sees opportunity in every danger; the pessimist sees danger in every opportunity.”

“You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.”

“A good speech should be like a woman's skirt; long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.”

“But after all when you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.”

“We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.”

“The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.”

“Mr Churchill, to what do you attribute your success in life?Conservation of energy. Never stand up when you can sit down. And never sit down when you can lie down.”

“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.”

“I thought of a remark . . . that the United States is like a 'gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it there is no limit to the power it can generate.' Being saturated and satiated with emotion and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful.”

“The wars of people will be more terrible than those of kings.”

“Without courage all other virtues lose their meaning.”

“People stumble over the truth from time to time,but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.”

“It’s not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something.”

“We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.”

“He spoke with more eloquence than wisdom.”

“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.”

“A baboon in a forest is a matter of legitimate speculation; a baboon in a zoo is an object of public curiosity; but a baboon in your wife’s bed is a cause of the gravest concern.”

“In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”

“It is all true, or it ought to be; and more and better besides.”

“A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.”

“This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this Island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warriors”

“I should have liked to be asked to say what I knew. They always tried to ask what I did not know. When I would have willingly displayed my knowledge, they sought to expose my ignorance. This sort of treatment had only one result: I did not do well in examinations”

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

“I always avoid prophesying beforehand because it is much better to prophesy after the event has already taken place.”

“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.”

“I never worry about action, but only about inaction.”

“War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can.”

“A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality.”

“It's Never Over 'till it's over!Never Give Up! Never.”

“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.”

“and being as wicked as any man who ever lived, he exploited his advantage to the full.”

“If he trips he must be sustained. If he makes mistakes they must be covered. If he sleeps he must not be wantonly disturbed. If he is no good he must be pole-axed”

“They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they'd make up their minds.”

“An old battleax of a woman said to Winston Churchill, "If you were my husband I would put poison in your tea." Churchill's response, "Ma'am if you were my wife I would drink it.”

“A man must choose his own way of life, and…it is only by following out one’s own bent that there can be the really harmonious life.” [In an interview conducted by Bram Stoker]”