Famous Quotes by Sir Winston Churchill

Below are famous quotes by Sir Winston Churchill - British politician (1874 - 1965).

[He] looks at foreign affairs through the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe.

[On recognizing China] But if you recognize anyone it does not mean you like them. For instance, we all recognize the right honourable gentleman the member for Ebbw Vale.

A love for tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril.

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

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

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile - hoping it will eat him last.

Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.

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.

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into a even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill- designed for the purpose.

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

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

I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.

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

I gather, young man, that you wish to be a Member of Parliament. The first lesson that you must learn is, when I call for statistics about the rate of infant mortality, what I want is proof that fewer babies died when I was Prime Minister than when anyone else was Prime Minister. That is a political statistic.

I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents.

I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

If heaven is going to be full of people like Hardie, well, the Almighty can have them to himself.

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

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

It helps to write down half a dozen things which are worrying me. Two of them, say, disappear; about two, nothing can be done, so it’s no use worrying, and two perhaps can be settled.

It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.

It is no use saying, "We are doing our best." You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.

It might be said that Lord Rosebery outlived his future by ten years and his past by more than twenty.

MacDonald has the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thoughts.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

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

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

Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.

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.

Statistics are like a drunk with a lampost: used more for support than illumination.

Success is never final.

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.

The best argument against democracy is a five minute talk with the average voter.

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

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

The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.

The price of greatness is responsibility.

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.

There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.

There but for the grace of God goes God.

There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.

To be conservative at 20 is heartless and to be a liberal at 60 is plain idiocy.

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.

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

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.

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.

When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.

Who will relieve me of this Wuthering Height

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