Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874–1965) 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 Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Winston Churchill
Everything tends towards catastrophe and collapse. I am interested, geared up and happy. Is it not horrible to be made like this?
—Winston Churchill
The difference between an optimist and a pessimist is that a pessimist sees problems in opportunities whereas an optimist sees opportunities in problems.
—Winston Churchill
I have not become the Kings First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.
—Winston Churchill
Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll, always feeling ones pulse and taking ones temperature. I see that a speaker at the week-end said that this was a time when leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the British nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture.
—Winston Churchill
A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: People, Change, Fanaticism
We must beware of trying to build a society in which nobody counts for anything except a politician or an official, a society where enterprise gains no reward and thrift no privileges.
—Winston Churchill
When I warned them the French that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken. Some chicken! Some neck!
—Winston Churchill
We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.
—Winston Churchill
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
It is more agreeable to have the power to give than to receive.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Charity
This is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put.
—Winston Churchill
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: World, Truth, Honesty
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.
—Winston Churchill
One woman who managed to corner him, the story runs, said in a treacly gushing voice: Doesn’t it thrill you, Mr. Churchill, to know that every time you make a speech the hall is packed to overflowing? It is quite flattering, Mr. Churchill replied, but whenever I feel this way I always remember that if instead of making a political speech I was being hanged, the crowd would be twice as big.
—Winston Churchill
I love this war. I know it’s smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment — and yet — I can’t help it — I enjoy every second of it.
—Winston Churchill
I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the firm ground of Result and Fact.
—Winston Churchill
Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Character
The only guide to man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Conscience
No hour of life is lost that is spent in the saddle.
—Winston Churchill
At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man walking into the little booth with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper. No amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Democracy
We have all seen with a sense of nausea the abject, squalid, shameless avowal made in the Oxford Union. We are told that we ought not to treat it seriously. The Times talked of the childrens hour. I disagree. It is a very disquieting and disgusting symptom. One can almost feel the curl of contempt upon the lips of the manhood of Germany, Italy, and France when they read the message sent out by Oxford University in the name of Young England. Let them be assured that it is not the last word. But before they blame, as blame they should, these callow ill-tutored youths, they must be sure that they have not been set a bad example by people much older and much higher up.
—Winston Churchill
Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Adversity, Criticism
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
I wonder whether any other generation has seen such astounding revolutions of data and values as those through which we have lived. Scarcely anything material or established which I was brought up to believe was permanent and vital, has lasted. Everything I was sure or taught to be sure was impossible, has happened.
—Winston Churchill
You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Giving, Sacrifice, Charity
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Failure, Success & Failure, Perseverance, Success
Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Bravery, Courage
Success is never final.
—Winston Churchill
We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past. We must look to the future. We cannot afford to drag forward across the years that are to come the hatreds and revenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past.
—Winston Churchill
Without courage, all other virtues lose their meaning.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Courage
Of course, when you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.
—Winston Churchill
Cultured people are merely the glittering scum which floats upon the deep river of production.
—Winston Churchill
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
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
—Winston Churchill
Working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation.
—Winston Churchill
True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.
—Winston Churchill
Topics: Genius
I am a man of simple tastes, easily satisifed with the best.
—Winston Churchill
I do not hold that we should rearm in order to fight. I hold that we should rearm in order to parley.
—Winston Churchill
We shape our environments, then our environments shape us.
—Winston Churchill
There is a hush over all Europe, nay, over all the world. Alas! it is the hush of suspense, and in many lands it is the hush of fear. Listen! No, listen carefully, I think I hear somethingyes, there it was quite clear. Don’t you hear it? It is the tramp of armies crunching the gravel of the paradegrounds, splashing through rain-soaked fields, the tramp of two million German soldiers and more than a million Italiansgoing on maneuversyes, only on maneuvers!
—Winston Churchill
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