Quotes from Martin Gilbert

Regina Waldman, a young Jewish girl living in Libya, who was nine years old in 1957, recalled an incident in her own school. A teacher asked the children in an arithmetic lesson: 'If you have ten Jews and you kill five, how many do you have left?' That, she reflected many years later, 'was my first taste of hate.'13

would make 'a fatal bargain' if they allowed 'the moral force which this country has so long exerted to become diminished, or perhaps even destroyed, for the sake of the costly, trumpery, dangerous military playthings

for the first time in British history, gave votes to women; six million women gained the vote as a result of the new Act.

He rejected the policy of seeking a direct accommodation with the Nazis at the expense of the smaller states of Europe.

The full extent of Nazi persecution was evidence, as he saw it, that there would never be any meaningful accommodation between Nazism and Parliamentary democracy.

From the earliest successes of the Nazi movement, even before 1933, he expressed his repugnance of Nazi excesses, and he continued to do so after 1933, despite repeated German protests at his articles and speeches.

Nothing could persuade him to accept the possibility of compromise with evil at the expense of others, or to abandon his faith in the rule of law, the supremacy of elected Parliaments and the rights of the individual.

That same day he wrote to Austen Chamberlain, to explain that he would soon have to ask for 'substantial repayments' of French and Italian war debts, already more than six years overdue.

In his continued forecasts of the potential German air strength, Churchill has often been accused of exaggeration.

We can avoid all this trouble by throwing up the sponge, by sitting still and putting up with being fleeced. Then there will be lots of compliments about the good feelings which we have established in Europe and about what a very agreeable and friendly nation we are. But I think this is a pretty thin diet to give to the taxpayers of this country in their present circumstances. The

Although the Government and the Air Ministry sought to weaken the impact of Churchill's warnings by accusing him of exaggeration, within four years they were forced to recognize that the true situation was as he had forecast.

The United States has a will of its own, very clearly and obstinately expressed, namely, to exact payment from Great Britain. France has a will of her own, equally clearly expressed, namely, to pay nobody.

How often I find myself called wrong,' Churchill had written to his wife on 17 April 1924, 'for warning of follies in time.

The Government's repeated response, however, even after October 1938, was to continue to attack his motives and judgement, and to seek to minimize the importance of his information.

No doubt it is not popular to say these things,' Churchill had written to his wife on 26 September 1935, 'but I am accustomed to abuse and I expect to have a great deal more of it before I have finished. Somebody has to state the truth.' During

led Churchill to work with many disparate groups to try to influence public opinion towards the need for greater vigilance in defence of democracy, faith in the moral tenets of the anti-totalitarian cause

I think the rich, whether idle or not, are already taxed in this country to the very highest point compatible with the accumulation of capital for future production.

The passivity of the present Govt is beyond belief.

I am aiming at is a substantial diminution in actual burden on the direct taxpayer. I believe that this burden is at the present time a grave discouragement to enterprise and thrift and a potent factor in the tendency to high profits. I want to make a real impression upon this.

the first and foremost step towards a victorious landing was to upset the equilibrium of the Turk so that he should be unable to concentrate either his mind or his men to meet our main attacks…. Prudence here is entirely out of place. There will be and can be no reconnaissances, no half measures, no tentatives. At a given moment we must stake everything on the one hazard.

The State must play an ever-widening part; it must, for example, 'increasingly and earnestly concern itself with the care of the sick and the aged, and, above all, of the children'.

The man who makes no mistakes never makes anything

We are in the midst of dangers so great and increasing, we are the guardians of causes so precious to the world, that we must, as the Bible says, "Lay aside every impediment" and prepare ourselves night and day to be worthy of the Faith that is in us.

though in the year before the first use of X-rays this was not known; indeed, it did not become known for seventy years, when this same thigh was X-rayed after a fall in Monte Carlo in 1963.