Winston Churchill
I have been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who get drunk.
Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.
In those days he was wiser than he is now; he used to frequently take my advice.
Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed.
Really I feel less keen about the Army every day. I think the Church would suit me better.
Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.
Baldwin thought Europe was a bore, and Chamberlain thought it was only a greater Birmingham.
If it weren't for painting, I wouldn't live; I couldn't bear the extra strain of things.
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else.
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
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.
The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.
I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.
Mr. Attlee is a very modest man. Indeed he has a lot to be modest about.
To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.
I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.
Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
I never worry about action, but only inaction.
Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
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.
True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.
There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.
A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.
To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.
He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.
Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.
Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.
I'm just preparing my impromptu remarks.
There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
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!
Play the game for more than you can afford to lose... only then will you learn the game.
We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm.
What kind of people do they think we are? Is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?
I like a man who grins when he fights.
We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.
Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.
It was the nation and the race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion's heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.
If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.