Quotees Archive

Nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get in the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge, and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man who knows where it hurts is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialized character.

- Winston Churchill

Now at this very moment I knew that the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all! … How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care … We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end … Hitler’s fate was sealed. Mussolini’s fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to a powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force.

- Winston Churchill

Now that we have run out of money we have to think.

- Winston Churchill

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

- Winston Churchill

Occasionally a man stumbles over the truth. Most dust themselves off and continue walking as though nothing had happened.

- Winston Churchill

Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.

- Winston Churchill

Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind.

- Winston Churchill

Of course I’m an egoist. Where do you get if you aren’t?

- Winston Churchill

Of this I am quite sure. If we open up a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.

- Winston Churchill

On an opponent:”He loves the working man. He loves to see him work.

- Winston Churchill

One clear-cut result is worth a dozen wise precautions.

- Winston Churchill

One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once ‘The Unnecessary War’.

- Winston Churchill

One does not leave a convivial party before closing time.

- Winston Churchill

One incident preserved by General Ismay in an apocryphal and somewhat lively form may be allowed to lighten the narrative. His orderly, a Royal Marine, was shown the sights of Moscow by one of the Intourist guides. “This,” said the Russian, “is the Eden Hotel, formerly Ribbentrop Hotel. Here is Churchill Street, formerly Hitler Street. Here is the Beaverbrook railway station, formerly Goering railway station. Will you have a cigarette, comrade?” The Marine replied, “Thank you, comrade, formerly bastard!” This tale, though jocular, illustrates none the less the strange atmosphere of these meetings.

- Winston Churchill

One must never forget when misfortunes come that it is quite possible they are saving one from something much worse; or that when you make some great mistake, it may very easily serve you better than the best-advised decision. Life is a whole, and luck is a whole, and no part of them can be separated from the rest.

- Winston Churchill

One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

- Winston Churchill

My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best.

- Winston Churchill

My wife and I tried to breakfast together, but we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked.

- Winston Churchill

My wife and I tried two or three times in the last 40 years to have breakfast together, but it was so disagreeable we had to stop.

- Winston Churchill

Nations that went down fighting rose again, but those who surrendered tamely were finished.

- Winston Churchill

Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

- Winston Churchill

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

- Winston Churchill

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

- Winston Churchill

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

- Winston Churchill

Never, give in! Never give in! Never, never, never… In nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions or honor and good sense!

- Winston Churchill

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

- Winston Churchill

Never, never, never give in!

- Winston Churchill

Never, never, never give up.

- Winston Churchill

No comment’ is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again.

- Winston Churchill

No crime is so great as daring to excel.

- Winston Churchill

No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.

- Winston Churchill

No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle.

- Winston Churchill

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.

- Winston Churchill

No lover ever studied every whim of his mistress as I did those of President Roosevelt.

- Winston Churchill

No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.

- Winston Churchill

Not an hour is lost that is spent in the saddle.

- Winston Churchill

Let us learn our lessons. Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The Statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

- Winston Churchill

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.

- Winston Churchill

Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut.

- Winston Churchill

Logic, like science, must be the servant and not the master of man.

- Winston Churchill

Love to learn—hate to be taught.

- Winston Churchill

MacDonald has the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought.

- Winston Churchill

Madness is however an affliction which in war carries with it the advantage of SURPRISE.

- Winston Churchill

Man will occasionally stumble upon the truth but most times he will pick himself up and continue on.

- Winston Churchill

Mankind has never been in this position before. Without having improved appreciably in virtue or enjoying wiser guidance, it has got into its hands for the first time the tools by which it can unfailingly accomplish its own extermination. That is the point in human destinies to which all the glories and toils of men have at last led them. They would do well to pause and ponder upon their new responsibilities. Death stands at attention, obedient, expectant, ready to serve, ready to shear away the peoples en masse; ready, if called on, to pulverise, without hope of repair, what is left of civilisation. He awaits only the word of command. He awaits it from a frail, bewildered being, long his victim, now—for one occasion only—his Master.

- Winston Churchill

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 for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

- Winston Churchill

Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne, knowing him was like drinking it.

- Winston Churchill

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

- Winston Churchill

Men sometimes stumble over the truth, but often pick themselves up and hurry off as though nothing had happened.

- Winston Churchill

Money is like manure, its only good if you spread it around.

- Winston Churchill