Winston Churchill Quotations | Page 5

Never give up on something that you can't go a day without thinking about.

There is a hush over all Europe, nay, over all the world. Alas! it is the hush of suspense, and in many lands it is the hush of fear. Listen! No, listen carefully, I think I hear somethingyes, there it was quite clear. Dont you hear it? It is the tramp of armies crunching the gravel of the paradegrounds, splashing through rain-soaked fields, the tramp of two million German soldiers and more than a million Italiansgoing on maneuversyes, only on maneuvers!

Fancy cutting down all those beautiful trees...to make pulp for those bloody newspapers, and calling it civilisation.

By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach.

I like things to happen, and if they don't happen I like to make them happen.

Haven't you learned yet that I put something more than whisky into my speeches.

The dictator, in all his pride, is held in the grip of his party machine. He can go forward; he cannot go back. He must blood his hounds and show them sport, or else, like Actaeon of old, be devoured by them. All-strong without, he is all-weak within.

It is better to be making the news than taking it, to be an actor rather than a critic.

Appeasement is feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last.

Happy are the painters, for they shall not be lonely. Light and colour, peace and hope, will keep them company to the end of the day.

We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.

Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party

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.

Great success always comes at the risk of enormous failure.

To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.

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

They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they'd make up their minds.

When I get to heaven I mean to spend a considerable portion of my first million years in painting, and so get to the bottom of the subject.

When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.

The gov­ern­ment had to choose between war and shame. They chose shame. They will get war too.

If you are going to go through hell, keep going

The only guide to man is his conscience.

Success is often nothing more than moving from one failure to another with undiminished enthusiasm.

If one has to submit, it is wasteful not to do so with the best grace possible.

If I had my way, I would write the word 'insure' over every door of every cottage and upon the blotting pad of every public man, because I am convinced that, for sacrifice that are conceivably small, families can be secured against catastrophes which otherwise would smash them forever.

You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home -- all the more powerful because forbidden -- terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic.

I do not resent criticism, even when for the sake of emphasis; it parts for the time with reality.

It is wonderful what great strides can be made when there is a resolute purpose behind them.

Some people like the Jews, and some do not. But no thoughtful man can deny the fact that they are, beyond any question, the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has appeared in the world.

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

The only guide to a man's conscience, the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions.

In Success you deserve it and in defeat, you need it.

Hence we will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but heroes fight like Greeks.

It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.

Sometimes our best is simply not enough.... We have to do what is required.

A baboon in a forest is a matter of legitimate speculation; a baboon in a zoo is an object of public curiosity; but a baboon in your wife’s bed is a cause of the gravest concern.

Things don't happen to me. I happen to things!

It is no use doing what you like; you have got to like what you do.

The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.

Sure I am this day we are masters of our fate, that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win, victory will not be denied us.

An old battleax of a woman said to Winston Churchill, "If you were my husband I would put poison in your tea." Churchill's response, "Ma'am if you were my wife I would drink it.

When you are going through hell, keep on going. Never never never give up.

Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it all others depend.

Remember gentleman, it's not just France we're fighting for, it's Champagne!

Mountaintops inspire leaders but valleys mature them.

We (The British) have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.

Working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation.

No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it.

Make sure that the beer - four pints a week - goes to the troops under fire before any of the parties in the rear get a drop.

I always like to learn, but I don't always like to be taught.

Not to have an adequate air force in the present state of the world is to compromise the foundations of national freedom and independence.

The enemy is still proud and powerful. He is hard to get at. He still possesses enormous armies, vast resources, and invaluable strategic territories...No one can tell what new complications and perils might arise in four or five more years of war. And it is in the dragging-out of the war at enormous expense, until the democracies are tired or bored or split that the main hopes of Germany and Japan must reside.

If we are together nothing is impossible. If we are divided all will fail.

There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.

Beginning with audacity is a very great part of the art of painting.

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.

Science burrows its insulted head in the filth of slaughterous inventions.

A polo handicap is a persons ticket to the world.

Air superiority is the ultimate expression of military power.

My education was interrupted only by my schooling.

There are no limits to the majestic future which lies before the mighty expanse of Canada with its virile, aspiring, cultured, and generous-hearted people.

To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real.

They feed the crocodile in the hope that he will eat them last.

The man who can master his time can master nearly anything.

Life can either be accepted or changed. If it is not accepted, it must be changed. If it cannot be changed, then it must be accepted.

I should have liked to be asked to say what I knew. They always tried to ask what I did not know. When I would have willingly displayed my knowledge, they sought to expose my ignorance. This sort of treatment had only one result: I did not do well in examinations

Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.

There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hope soon to be swept away.

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.

Eating words has never given me indigestion.

War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.

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

A love for tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril.

There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.

We have not journeyed all this way because we are made of sugar candy.

There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human, are created, strengthened and maintained.

A lady came up to me one day and said 'Sir! You are drunk', to which I replied 'I am drunk today madam, and tomorrow I shall be sober but you will still be ugly.

Writing a long and substantial book is like having a friend and companion at your side, to whom you can always turn for comfort and amusement, and whose society becomes more attractive as a new and widening field of interest is lighted in the mind.

You create your own universe as you go along.

We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls.

Success always demands a greater effort.

The maxim, "Nothing prevails but perfection," may be spelled PARALYSIS.

Writing is an adventure.

Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one.

We get to make a living; we give to make a life.

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

The substitution of the internal combustion engine for the horse marked a very gloomy milestone in the progress of mankind.

I think a curse should rest on me - because I love this war. I know it's smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment - and yet - I can't help it - I enjoy every second of it.

The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes...

A vocabulary of truth and simplicity will be of service throughout your life.

In finance everything that is agreeable is unsound and everything that is sound is disagreeable.

Give us the tools, and we will finish the job

Things do not get better by being left alone.

Advertising mourishes the consuming power of men. It sets up before a man the goal of a better home, better clothing, better food for himself and his family. It spurs individual exertion and greater production.

When I was younger I made it a rule never to take strong drink before lunch. It is now my rule never to do so before breakfast.

The day may dawn when fair play, love for one's fellow men, respect for justice and freedom, will enable tormented generations to march forth serene and triumphant from the hideous epoch in which we have to dwell. Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair.

Sunshine is my quest.