Winston Churchill Quotes

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

We are all worms, But I do believe that I am a glow worm.

We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

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

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.

...But the Mahommedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance. It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since, its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness. In a moment the fruits of patient toil, the prospects of material prosperity, the fear of death itself, are flung aside. The more emotional Pathans are powerless to resist. All rational considerations are forgotten. Seizing their weapons, they become Ghazis — as dangerous and as sensible as mad dogs: fit only to be treated as such. While the more generous spirits among the tribesmen become convulsed in an ecstasy of religious bloodthirstiness, poorer and more material souls derive additional impulses from the influence of others, the hopes of plunder and the joy of fighting. Thus whole nations are roused to arms. Thus the Turks repel their enemies, the Arabs of the Soudan break the British squares, and the rising on the Indian frontier spreads far and wide. In each case civilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism. The forces of progress clash with those of reaction. The religion of blood and war is face to face with that of peace.

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

"Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body; it calls attention to the development of an unhealthy state of things. If it is heeded in time, danger may be averted; if it is suppressed, a fatal distemper may develop."

[New Statesman interview, 7 January 1939]

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.

In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.

I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the firm ground of Result and Fact.

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

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself, believe.