Statesman Quotes

“Personal initiative, competitive selection, the profit motive, corrected by failure and the infinite process of good housekeeping and the personal ingenuity-here constitute the life of a free society.”

“You must put your head into the lion's mouth if the performance is to be a success.”

“Two nations divided by a common language.”

“[The politician] is asked to stand, he wants to sit, and he is expected to lie.”

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

“Failure should never go to heart and success should never go to head, both makes a person to fall in life.”

“Do what you like, but like what you do.”

“...the high roads of the future will be clear, not only for us but for all, not only for our time but for a century to come.”

“We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general.”

“Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it.”

“Success is never found. Failure is never fatal. Courage is the only thing.”

“I was not the lion, but it fell to me to give the lion's roar.”

“Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason.”

“Leave to the masters of art trained by a lifetime of devotion the wonderful process of picture-building and picture creation. Go out into the sunlight and be happy with what you see.”

“Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.”

“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.”

“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.”

“We shall go forward together. The road upwards is stony. There are upon our journey dark and dangerous valleys through which we have to make and fight our way. But it is sure and certain that if we persevere - and we shall persevere - we shall come through these dark and dangerous valleys into a sunlight broader and more genial and more lasting than mankind has ever known.”

“Your greatest fears are created by your imagination. Don't give in to them.”

“If I stay on for the time being, bearing the burden at my age, it is not because of love for power or office. I have had an ample share of both. If I stay it is because I have a feeling that I may, through things that have happened, have an influence about what I care about above all else, the building of a sure and lasting peace.”

“I let the argument rip healthily between the departments. This is a very good way to finding out the truth.”

“A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.”

“Vast and fearsome as the human scene has become, personal contact of the right people, in the right places, at the right time, may yet have a potent and valuable part to play in the cause of peace which is in our hearts.”

“In all the twelve years I was at school no one ever succeeded in making me write a Latin verse or learn any Greek except the alphabet.”

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.”