Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

British leader

• War Speech
• Many Mansions
• Blood, Toil, Tears
• Their Finest Hour

Famous Quotes

What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?

The truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is.

We, the aggrieved and belligerent Powers who are waging war against Germany, have no need to ask for respite.

We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.

Goodnight then: sleep to gather strength for the morning. For the morning will come. Brightly will it shine on the brave and true, kindly upon all who suffer for the cause, glorious upon the tombs of heroes. Thus will shine the dawn.

I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.' We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. 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.

First there are the Jews who, dwelling in every country throughout the world, identify themselves with that country, enter into its national life and, while adhering faithfully to their own religion, regard themselves as citizens in the fullest sense of the State which has received them. Such a Jew living in England would say, 'I am an English man practicing the Jewish faith.' This is a worthy conception, and useful in the highest degree. We in Great Britain well know that during the great struggle the influence of what may be called the 'National Jews' in many lands was cast preponderatingly on the side of the Allies; and in our own Army Jewish soldiers have played a most distinguished part, some rising to the command of armies, others winning the Victoria Cross for valor.

We cannot tell what the fate of Finland may be, but no more mournful spectacle could be presented to what is left to civilized mankind than that this splendid Northern race should be at last worn down and reduced to servitude worse than death by the dull brutish force of overwhelming numbers.

Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear-I fear greatly-the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar, ever more loudly, ever more widely. It will spread to the South; it will spread to the North. There is no chance of a speedy end except through united action; and if at any time Britain and France, wearying of the struggle, were to make a shameful peace, nothing would remain for the smaller States of Europe, with their shipping and their possessions, but to be divided between the opposite, though similar, barbarisms of Nazidom and Bolshevism.

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

I am prepared to meet my maker; whether my maker is prepared to meet me is entirely another matter.

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.

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

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

If you are going through hell, keep going. 

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

There should be on great occasions a sense of crowd and urgency. There should be a sense of the importance of much that is said, and a sense that great matters are being decided, there and then by the House... It has a collective personality which enjoys the regard of the public, and which imposes itself upon the conduct not only of individual Members but of parties.

In war it does not matter who is right, but who is left.

The Times is speechless and takes three columns to express its speechlessness.

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.

The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.

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

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

One must regard the hyphen as a blemish to be avoided whenever possible

The water was not fit to drink. To make it palatable, we had to add whisky. By diligent effort, I learnt to like it

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