Quotes from Winston S. Churchill

I have achieved a great deal to achieve nothing in the end.

The Declaration of Independence is not only an American document. It follows on Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights as the third great title-deed on which the liberties of the English-speaking people are founded…. The political conceptions embodied in the Declaration of Independence are the same as those expressed at that time by Lord Chatham and Mr. Burke and handed down to them by John Hampden and Algernon Sidney.

change is the best kind of rest.

I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me

Very soon they will have to choose on the one hand between economic and financial collapse or internal upheaval, and on the other a war which could have no other object

It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, an Inner Temple lawyer, now become a seditious fakir of a type well known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceregal Palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor. [February 23, 1931]

No one can tell that he may not some day set a stone rolling or take or neglect some ordinary step which in its consequences will alter the history of the world.

Let it never be said that you crept into the crypt, crapped, and crept out again.

There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away… people can face peril or misfortune with fortitude and buoyancy, but they bitterly resent being deceived or finding that those responsible for their affairs are themselves dwelling in a fool's paradise.

He is no Socialist who will not sacrifice his Fatherland for the triumph of the Social Revolution.'—LENIN.

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

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.

Libya, Eritrea, Abyssinia, Somaliland, nourished by Italian taxation, comprised a vast region in which nearly a quarter of a million Italian colonists toiled, and began to thrive, under the protection of more than four hundred thousand Italian and native troops.

I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat.

Wave after wave, dark with storm, crested with foam, surged towards the harbour in which we still sheltered. Should we drive out into the teeth of the gale, or should we bide contented where we were? Yet beyond the breakers was a great hope.

The camel once swallowed, the gnats went down easily enough.

History, which, we are told, is mainly the record of the crimes, follies, and miseries of mankind

The uncertainty and importance of the present reduce the past and future to comparative insignificance, and clear the mind of minor worries. And when all is over, memories remain which few men do not hold precious.

An iron curtain is drawn down upon their front. We do not know what is going on behind.

First we shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us.

In two or three minutes Mr. Roosevelt came through. "Mr. President, what's this about Japan?" "It's quite true," he replied. "They have attacked us at Pearl Harbour. We are all in the same boat now.

It is where the balance quivers, and the proportions are veiled in mist, that the opportunity for world-saving decisions presents itself.

We, in short, propose to tax luxuries, monopolies, and superfluities, but we scrupulously avoid taxing the necessaries of life.

In every age there comes a time when a leader must come forward to meet the needs of the hour. Therefore, there is no potential leader who does not have the opportunity to make a positive difference in society.