Quotes by Sir Winston Churchill

“A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“A love for tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

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

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

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.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.” -Sir Winston Churchill

“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

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

“I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required."
-Sir Winston Churchill

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“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.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.”
-Sir Winston Churchill

“Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.”
-Sir Winston Churchill, (attributed)

"Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen."
-Sir Winston Churchill, a conference in Washington DC

"We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire...Give us the tools and we will finish the job."
-Sir Winston Churchill, BBC radio broadcast, Feb 9, 1941

"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."
-Sir Winston Churchill, Hansard, June 10, 1941

“I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat."
-Sir Winston Churchill, Hansard, May 13, 1940

“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 all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
-Sir Winston Churchill, Hansard, November 11, 1947

“So they [the Government] go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.”
-Sir Winston Churchill, Hansard, November 12, 1936

“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.”
-Sir Winston Churchill, My Early Life, 1930

“I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”
-Sir Winston Churchill, on the eve of his 75th birthday

“I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel. He replied, 'Verify your quotations.'”
-Sir Winston Churchill, quoted in Rudolf Flesch, ed., "The New Book of Unusual --Quotations" (NY: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 311

“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”
-Sir Winston Churchill, Radio speech, 1939

“Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt... We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job.”
-Sir Winston Churchill, Radio speech, 1941

“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.”
-Sir Winston Churchill, Roving Commission: My Early Life, 1930, Chapter 9

“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'.”
-Sir Winston Churchill, Second World War (1948)

“The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.”
-Sir Winston Churchill, Speech at Harvard University, September 6, 1943

“For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else.”
-Sir Winston Churchill, speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet, London, November 9, 1954

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”
-Sir Winston Churchill, Speech in March 1946

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
-Sir Winston Churchill, Speech in November 1942

“We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.”
-Sir Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons, July 14, 1940

“A love of tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril; but the new view must come, the world must roll forward.”
-Sir Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons, November 29, 1944

“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.”
-Sir Winston Churchill, Speech, 1941, Harrow School