Winston Churchill Quotes

It is better to do the wrong thing that to do nothing.

Those good at war aren't good at peace, and those good at peace aren't good at war.

Curse ruthless time! Curse our mortality. How cruelly short is the allotted span for all we must cram into it!

The reservist is twice the citizen.

One cannot leap a chasm in two jumps.

Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong - these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.

We should lay aside every hindrance and endeavour by uniting the whole force and spirit of our people to raise again a great British nation standing up before all the world; for such a nation, rising in its ancient vigour, can even at this hour save civilization.

I am too busy. I have not time for worry.

Those who plan do better than those who do not plan, even should they rarely stick to their plan.

Where there is a great deal of free speech there is always a certain amount of foolish speech.

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path. Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go. Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.

Happy are the painters, for they shall not be lonely.

When we look back on all the perils through which we have passed and at the mighty foes that we have laid low and all the dark and deadly designs that we have frustrated, why should we fear for our future? We have come safely through the worst.

Beware of driving men to desperation. Even a cornered rat is dangerous.

You may take the most gallant sailor, the most intrepid airman, or the most audacious soldier, put them at a table together- what do you get? The sum of their fears.

Life is a test and this world a place of trial. Always the problems - or it may be the same problem - will be presented to every generation in different forms.

Have no fear of the future. Let us go forward into its mysteries, tear away the veils which hide it from our eyes, and move onwards with confidence and courage.

Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge. Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words when short are best of all.

I think it is the most important subject facing this country, but I cannot get any of my ministers to take any notice.

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 others that have been

I hope I shall never see the daywhen the Force of Rightis deprived of the Right of Force.

You can measure a man's character by the choices he makes under pressure.

We have taken a grave and hazardous decision to sustain the Greeks and try to make a Balkan Front.

Broadly speaking, human beings may be divided into three classes: those who are billed to death, those who are worried to death, and those who are bored to death.

When you leave off dreaming, the universe ceases to exist.

At the beginning of this War megalomania was the only form of sanity.

Peace will not be preserved by pious sentiments.

The definition of courage is going from defeat to defeat with enthusiasm.

A man must choose his own way of life, and…it is only by following out one’s own bent that there can be the really harmonious life.” [In an interview conducted by Bram Stoker]

I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war I hoped we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations. I am sorry, however, that he has not been mellowed by the great success that has attended him. The whole world would rejoice to see the Hitler of peace and tolerance, and nothing would adorn his name in world history so much as acts of magnanimity and of mercy and of pity to the forlorn and friendless, to the weak and poor.... Let this great man search his own heart and conscience before he accuses anyone of being a warmonger.

The future is unknowable, but the past should give us hope.

In Hitler's launching of the Nazi campaign upon Russia we can already see, after less than six months of fighting, that he made one of the outstanding blunders of history, and the results so far realized constitute an event of cardinal importance in the final decision of the war.

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

I am not a bit afraid of Siegfried Sassoon. That man can think. I am afraid only of people who cannot think.

When you have got a thing where you want, it is a good thing to leave it where it is.

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.

America, can always be counted upon to do the right thing in the end, having first exhausted the available alternatives.

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

Americans are a wonderful people: They will always do the right thing--after exhausting every other possible alternative.

Perfect solutions of our difficulties are not to be looked for in an imperfect world.

All wisdom is not new wisdom.

Never stand so high upon a principle that you cannot lower it to suit the circumstances.

The Russian Bolsheviks have discovered that truth does not matter so long as there is reiteration. They have no difficulty whatever in countering a fact by a lie which, if repeated often enough and loudly enough, becomes accepted by the people.

Never abandon life. There is a way out of everything except death.

If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.

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

For the first 25 years of my life, I wanted freedom. For the next 25 years, I wanted order. For the next 25 years, I realized that order is freedom.

You haven't learned life's lesson very well if you haven't noticed that you can give the tone or colour, or decide the reaction you want of people in advance. It's unbelievable simply. If you want them to take an interest in you, take an interest in them first. If you want to make them nervous, become nervous yourself...It's as simple as that. People will treat you as you treat them. It's no secret. Look about you. You can prove it with the next person you meet.

I look like a down-and-out drunk who has been picked out of the gutter in the Strand.

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.

I wonder whether any other generation has seen such astounding revolutions of data and values as those through which we have lived. Scarcely anything material or established which I was brought up to believe was permanent and vital, has lasted. Everything I was sure or taught to be sure was impossible, has happened.

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.

Of all the branches of men in the forces there is none which shows more devotion and faces grimmer perils than the submariners.

Nothing is won without enthusiasm.

Talking death seriously is one of the tragedies of youth

It is never possible to guarantee success, it is only possible to deserve it.

I accumulated in those years so fine a surplus in the Book of Observance that I have been drawing confidently upon it ever since.

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can.

Without courage all other virtues lose their meaning.

How I hated this school, and what a life of anxiety I lived there for more than two years.