Winston Churchill (1874–1965,) fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, was a British political leader who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom 1940–45 and 1951–55. He is best remembered for his opposition to the pacification of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, for his inspiring leadership during World War II, and his forewarnings about Soviet expansionism.
Born at the Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, Churchill entered the army in 1895 and served in India, Egypt, and Sudan. He was a war correspondent during the Boer War before entering Parliament in 1900. He became prime minister in 1940 and allied with the U.S. to defeat the Axis Powers. He was an exceptional orator whose wartime speeches, broadcast over the radio in his deep voice, included many well-known passages.
Churchill was defeated in the 1945 general elections. He used his standing to warn of the dangers of Soviet expansionism in his famous “Iron Curtain” speech delivered at Fulton, Missouri, USA. He also called for European reconciliation and spoke in support of the nascent United Europe movement.
Churchill was elected prime minister for a second term in 1951; he retired from the premiership in 1955 but remained in Parliament until 1964.
Beyond politics, Churchill was a prolific author of history and biography; he was often assisted by secretaries and researchers. His notable works include The Second World War (1948–53) and A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1956–58.) Churchill was awarded the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature.
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It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what is required.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Doing
The latest refinements of science are linked with the cruelties of the Stone Age.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Science
Thus, by every device from the stick to the carrot, the emaciated Austrian donkey is made to pull the Nazi barrow up an ever-steepening hill.
—Winston Churchill
Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Goodness, Potential, Excellence, Resolve, Ability, Kindness, Virtue, Effort, Action, Perseverance, Endurance, Strength, Intelligence
I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colors. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.
—Winston Churchill
Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Solitude
Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Security
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Courage
Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gongthese are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.
—Winston Churchill
The chief aim of wisdom is to enable one to bear with the stupidity of the ignorant.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Wisdom
Twenty to twenty-five! These are the years! Don’t be content with things as they are. Don’t take No for an answer. Never submit to failure. Do not be fobbed off with mere personal success or acceptance. You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was made to be wooed and won by youth. She has lived and thrived only by repeated subjugations.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Failure
Everything tends towards catastrophe and collapse. I am interested, geared up and happy. Is it not horrible to be made like this?
—Winston Churchill
Any 20 year-old who isn’t a liberal doesn’t have a heart, and any 40 year-old who isn’t a conservative doesn’t have a brain.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Politicians, Politics
We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Mercy
You must sleep sometime between lunch and dinner, and no halfway measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed. That’s what I always do. Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That’s a foolish notion held by people who have no imaginations. You will be able to accomplish more. You get two days in one—well, at least one and a half.
—Winston Churchill
Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: War
Saving is a very fine thing. Especially when your parents have done it for you
—Winston Churchill
Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Conflict, Heroes, Guilt
There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Conscience
Sometimes it is not enough to do our best; we must do what is required.
—Winston Churchill
We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Home
Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller..
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Golf
In War: Resolution. In Defeat: Defiance. In Victory: Magnanimity. In Peace: Goodwill.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Attitude, Victory
Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Politics
Writing a long and substantial book is like having a friend and companion at your side, to whom you can always turn for comfort and amusement, and whose society becomes more attractive as a new and widening field of interest is lighted in the mind.
—Winston Churchill
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Fear, General, Action, Adversity, Courage, Moving on
Haven’t you learned yet that I put something more than whisky into my speeches.
—Winston Churchill
There are few virtues that the Poles do not possess and there are few errors they have ever avoided.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Nationalities, Nationalism, Nationality, Nation
We have a lot of anxieties, and one cancels out another very often.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Worry, Anxiety
A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.
—Winston Churchill
Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Golf
Golf is like chasing a quinine pill around a cow pasture
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Golf
Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Army, Navy
No comment is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Communication
It cannot in the opinion of His Majesty’s Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Slavery
I never worry about action, but only about inaction.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Worry, Action
If you mean to profit, learn to please.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Profit
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Living, Life, Conviction, Courage, Listening
Success is never final, and failure is never fatal; is it courage that counts.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Courage
Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Simplicity
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