Quotes from Winston S. Churchill

He cherished the illusion of power and consequence when the reality had gone.

This truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is.

It's ridiculous what little the French do!

I proceeded to a joint review of the British and American forces. There was a long march past in threes, during which the tune "United States Marines" bit so deeply into my memory that I could not get it out of my head.

The jury system has come to stand for all we mean by English justice, because so long as a case has to be scrutinised by twelve honest men, defendant and plaintiff alike have a safeguard from arbitrary perversion of the law.

I am also at this point accustomed to reaffirm with emphasis my conviction that the sun is real, and also that it is hot--in fact as hot as Hell, and if the metaphysicians doubt it they should go there and see.

If we could only weave Gaul and Teuton so closely together economically, socially, and morally as to prevent the occasion of new quarrels, and make old antagonisms die in the realisation of mutual prosperity and interdependence, Europe would rise again.

By what process could the slaughter of ten million men and the destruction of one-third of the entire savings of the greatest nations of the world have ushered in a Golden Age?

Unteachable from infancy to tomb—There is the first and main characteristic of mankind.

We shall not flag or fail! We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be! We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender!

Fanaticism is not a cause of war. It is the means which helps savage peoples to fight. It is the spirit which enables them to combine—the great common object before which all personal or tribal disputes become insignificant.

Only Finland—superb, nay sublime—in the jaws of peril—Finland shows what free men can do.

Vengeance is the most costly and dissipating of luxuries.

But the French seem much nearer to the danger than we are. There is no strip of salt water to guard their land and their liberties.

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings.

We have had nothing else but wars since democracy took charge.

depended. On this point we should never have given way, but the refusal would have been bitterly resented by our struggling Ally, and would have poisoned all our relations. It was even with an actual sense of relief that some of our high commanders addressed themselves to our new and grimly simplified problem. As

Painting is complete as a distraction. I know of nothing which, without exhausting the body more entirely absorbs the mind.

The Frogs are getting all they can for nothing, and we are getting nothing for all we can.

The wicked are not always clever, nor are dictators always right.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of pick themselves up and hurt off as if nothing had happened

Hitler has told us that it was a crime in such circumstances on our part to go to the aid of the Greeks. I do not wish to enter into argument with experts.

Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner.

Ten years is a long time in this fugitive world.