Winston Churchill
I have benefited greatly from criticism, and at no time have I suffered a lack thereof.Collection: Criticism
There is no surer method of economizing and saving money than in the reduction of the number of officials.Collection: Numbers
I'd prefer to be right than consistent.Collection: Consistent
Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.Collection: Funny
Don't be careless about yourselves--on the other hand not too careful. Live well but do not flaunt it. Laugh a little and teach your men to laugh--get good humor under fire--war is a game that's played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can.Collection: War
If you're going to walk through hell, keep going.Collection: Hell
Can a nation remain healthy, can all nations draw together in a world whose brightest stars are film stars?Collection: Stars
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.Collection: Gratitude
Hasty work and premature decisions may lead to penalties out of all proportion to the issues immediately involved.Collection: Leadership
All this contains much that is obviously true, and much that is relevant; unfortunately, what is obviously true is not relevant, and what is relevant is not obviously true.Collection: Attributes
The world today is ruled by harassed politicians absorbed in getting into office or turning out the other man so that not much room is left for debating the great issues on their meritsCollection: Men
872, Ivar, King of the Northmen of all Ireland and Britain , ended his life." He had conquered Mercia and East Anglia. He had captured the major stronghold of the kingdom of Strathclyde, Dumbarton. Laden with loot and seemingly invincible, he settled in Dublin and died there peacefully two years later. The pious chroniclers report that he "slept in Christ." Thus it may be that he had the best of both worlds.Collection: Kings
One of the most important signs of the existence of a democracy is that when there is a knock at the door at 5 in the morning, one is completely certain that it is the milkman.Collection: Morning
It is a curious fact about British Islanders, who hate drill and have not been invaded for nearly a thousand years, that as danger comes nearer and grows they become progressively less nervous; when it is imminent the are fierce, when it is mortal they are fearless.Collection: Hate
Working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation.Collection: Holiday
I play for high stakes and given an audience - there is no act too daring or too noble.Collection: Ambition
They feed the crocodile in the hope that he will eat them last.Collection: Military
Bessie Braddock: "Winston, you're drunk. Churchill: "Bessie, you're ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober.Collection: Clever
Like other systems in decay, the Roman Empire continued to function for several generations after its vitality was sapped. For nearly a hundred years our Island was one of the scenes of conflict between a dying civilisation and lusty, famishing barbarism.Collection: Islands
An aphorism is not an aphorism unless you know what it means.Collection: Mean
All was there-the programme of German resurrection, the technique of party propaganda; the plan for combating Marxism; the concept of a National-Socialist State; the rightful position of Germany at the summit ofthe world. Here was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message.Collection: War
I was happy as a child with my toys in my nursery. I been happier every year since I became a man. But this interlude of school makes a somber grey patch upon the chart of my journey. It was a unending spell of worries that did not then seem petty, and of toil uncheered by fruition; a time of discomfort, restriction and purposeless monotony.Collection: Children
We hoped to land a wild cat that would tear out the bowels of the Boche. Instead we have stranded a vast whale with its tail flopping about in the water.Collection: War
The rest and the spell of sleep in the middle of the day refresh the human frame far more than a long night. We were not made by Nature to work, or even to play, from eight o'clock in the morning till midnight. We throw a strain upon our system which is unfair and improvident. For every purpose of business or pleasure, mental or physical, we ought to break our days and our marches into two.Collection: Morning
We are weakened and we are tired, but we are not done yet.Collection: Tired
We shall defend every village, every town and every city. The vast mass of London itself, fought street by street, could easily devour an entire hostile army; and we would rather see London laid in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved.Collection: Army
Americans are a wonderful people: They will always do the right thing--after exhausting every other possible alternative.Collection: People
The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it. Therefore our supreme effort must be to gain overwhelming mastery in the Air. The Fighters are our salvation . . . but the Bombers alone provide the means of victory. . . . In no other way at present visible can we hope to overcome the immense military power of Germany.Collection: Military
My mother made a brilliant impression upon my childhood life. She shone for me like the evening star.Collection: Mom
The Chinese said of themselves several thousand years ago: China is a sea that salts all the waters that flow into it. Theres another Chinese saying about their country which is much more modernit dates only from the fourth century. This is the saying: The tail of China is large and will not be wagged. I like that one. The British democracy approves the principles of movable party heads and unwaggable national tails. It is due to the working of these important forces that I have the honour to be addressing you at this moment.Collection: Country
Let the children have their night of fun and laughter, let the gifts of Father Christmas delight their play. Let us grown-ups share to the full in their unstinted pleasures.Collection: Christmas
It may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a state in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation.Collection: Brother
[Magna Carta provided] "a system of checks and balances which would accord the monarchy its necessary strength, but would prevent its perversion by a tyrant or a fool.Collection: Tyrants
The cultivation of a hobby and new forms of interest is a policy of first importance to a public man.Collection: Men
My greatest good fortune in a life of brilliant experiences has been to find you, and to lead my life with you. I don't feel far away from you out here at all. I feel very near in my heart; and also I feel that the nearer I get to honour, the nearer I am to you.Collection: Love
The first duty of a university is to teach wisdom, not trade; character, not technicalities.Collection: Character
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? How else can we put ourselves in harmonious relation with the great verities and consolations of the infinite and the eternal? And I avow my faith that we are marching towards better days. Humanity will not be cast down. We are going on swinging bravely forward along the grand high road and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the sun.Collection: Life
The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-Boat peril...It did not take the form of flaring battles and glittering achievements, it manifested itself through statistics, diagrams, and curves unknown to the nation, incomprehensible to the public.Collection: War
Victory is the beautiful, bright-colored flower. Transport is the stem without which it could never have blossomed.Collection: Beautiful
It is impossible to obtain a conviction for sodomy from an English jury. Half of them don't believe that it can physically be done, and the other half are doing it.Collection: Believe
Although always prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it should be postponed.Collection: Funny
May there not be methods of using explosive energy incomparably more intense than anything heretofore discovered? Might not a bomb no bigger than an orange be found to possess a secret power to destroy a whole block of buildings-nay, to concentrate the force of a thousand tons of cordite and blast a township at a stroke? Could not explosives even of the existing type be guided automatically in flying machines by wireless or other rays, without a human pilot, in ceaseless procession upon a hostile city, arsenal, camp or dockyard?Collection: Block
America, can always be counted upon to do the right thing in the end, having first exhausted the available alternatives.Collection: America
Vast and fearsome as the human scene has become, personal contact of the right people, in the right places, at the right time, may yet have a potent and valuable part to play in the cause of peace which is in our hearts.Collection: Peace
"I hope, sir, that I will shoot your picture on your hundredth birthday." I don't see why not, young man. You look reasonably fit and healthy.Collection: Men
Democracy is an awful way to run a country, but it's the best system we have.Collection: Funny
I have never promised anything but blood, tears, toil and sweat. Now, however we have a new experience. We have a victory - a remarkable and definite victory. The bright gleam has caught the helmets of our soldiers and warmed and cheered all our hearts.Collection: War
Decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.Collection: Powerful