Winston Churchill Quotes

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

Everyone can see the arguments against the English-speaking peoples becoming the policemen of the world.

We are bound to further every honest and practical step which the nations of Europe may make to reduce the barriers which divide them and to nourish their common interests and common welfare. We rejoice at every diminution of the internal tariffs and martial armaments of Europe. We see nothing but good and hope in a richer, freer, more contented European commonalty. But we have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not comprised. We are interested and associated, but not absorbed. And should European statesmen address us in the words which were used of old, 'Wouldest thou be spoken for to the king, or captain of the host?', we should reply, with the Shunammite woman: 'I dwell among mine own people.'

The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.

The most important thing about education is appetite.

The Titanic disaster is the prevailing theme here. The story is a good one. The strict observance of the great traditions of the sea towards women & children reflects nothing but honour upon our civilization... I cannot help feeling proud of our race & its traditions as proved by this event. Boat loads of women & children tossing on the sea — safe & sound — & the rest — Silence. Honour to their memory.

Side by side ... the British and French peoples have advanced to rescue ... mankind from the foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny which has ever darkened and stained the pages of history. Behind them ... gather a group of shattered States and bludgeoned races: the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Dutch, the Belgians -- upon all of whom the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall.

You are a small exclamation mark at the end of a very long and insignificant sentence in the book of history.

When we all got back to camp, our General communicated by heliograph through a distant mountain top with Sir at . Sir Bindon and our leading brigade had thenselves been heavily attacked the night before. They had lost hundreds of animals and twenty or thirty men, but otherwise were none the worse. Sir Bindon sent orders that we were to stay in the valley and lay it waste with fire and sword in vengeance. This accordingly we did, but with great precautions. We proceeded systematically, village by village, and we destroyed the houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the great shady trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation. So long as the villages were in the plain, this was quite easy. The tribesmen sat on the mountains and sullen watched the destruction of their homes and means of livelihood. When however we had to attack the villas on the sides of the mountains they resisted fiercely, and we lost for every village two or three British officers and fifteen or twenty native soldiers. Whether it was worth it, I cannot tell. At any rate, at the end of a fortnight the valley was a desert, and honour was satisfied.

On Christmas Day, 1914, the German soldiers on the Western Front ceased firing. They placed small Christmas trees on their trenches and declared that on this day there should be peace and goodwill among suffering men. Both sides came out of their trenches and met in the blasted No-Man's Land. They clasped each other's hands, they exchanged gifts and kind words. Together they buried the dead hitherto inaccessible and deprived of the rites which raise men above the brute. Let no man worthy of human stature banish this inspiration from his mind.

Good and great are seldom in the same man.

What I find unendurable is the sense of our country falling into the power, into the orbit and influence of Nazi Germany, and of our existence becoming dependent upon their good will or pleasure. It is to prevent that that I have tried my best to urge the maintenance of every bulwark of defence—first the timely creation of an Air Force superior to anything within striking distance of our shores; secondly, the gathering together of the collective strength of many nations; and thirdly, the making of alliances and military conventions, all within the Covenant, in order to gather together forces at any rate to restrain the onward movement of this Power. It has all been in vain. Every position has been successively undermined and abandoned on specious and plausible excuses.

All I want is compliance with my wishes, after reasonable discussion.

I know that it is the Socialist idea that making profits is a vice, and that making large profits is something of which a man ought to be ashamed. I hold the other view. I consider that the real vice is making losses.

I marvel at the complacency of Ministers in the face of the frightful experiences through which we have all so newly passed. I look with wonder upon our thoughtless crowds disporting themselves in the summer sunshine, and upon this unfocused, unheeding House of Commons, which seems to have no higher function than to cheer a Minister. But what is happening across the narrow seas? A terrible process is astir. Germany is arming. That mighty race who fought and almost vanquished the whole world is on the march again. The whole nation is inspired with the idea of retrieving and avenging their defeat in the Great War. They have arisen from the pit of disaster in monstrous guise. ... And we are still pestering France to disarm, and we are still disarmed ourselves!