Winston Churchill

My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

— Winston Churchill

It's no use saying, We are doing our best. You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.

— Winston Churchill

I never worry about action, but only inaction.

— Winston Churchill

In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.

— Winston Churchill

In those days he was wiser than he is now -- he used frequently to take my advice.

— Winston Churchill

We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we were young. The young sow wild oats. The old grow sage.

— Winston Churchill

No two on earth in all things can agree. All have some daring singularity.

— Winston Churchill

I have been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who get drunk.

— Winston Churchill

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

— Winston Churchill

Always remember, a cat looks down on man, a dog looks up to man, but a pig will look man right in the eye and see his equal.

— Winston Churchill

We have a lot of anxieties, and one cancels out another very often.

— Winston Churchill

The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash.

— Winston Churchill

Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.

— Winston Churchill

In War: Resolution. In Defeat: Defiance. In Victory: Magnanimity. In Peace: Goodwill.

— Winston Churchill

It is all right to rat, but you can't re-rat.

— Winston Churchill

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

— Winston Churchill

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent vice of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

— Winston Churchill

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

— 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

It is more agreeable to have the power to give than to receive.

— Winston Churchill

There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.

— Winston Churchill

I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colors. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.

— Winston Churchill

Socialism is like a dream. Sooner or later you wake up to reality.

— Winston Churchill

The substance of the eminent Socialist gentlemen's speech is that making a profit is a sin. It is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss!

— Winston Churchill

It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; I consider the real vice is making losses.

— Winston Churchill

Socialists think profits are a vice; I consider losses the real vice.

— Winston Churchill

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile -- hoping it will eat him last.

— Winston Churchill

The English never draw a line without blurring it.

— Winston Churchill

There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right.

— Winston Churchill

The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.

— Winston Churchill

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

— Winston Churchill

Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.

— Winston Churchill

This is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.

— Winston Churchill

Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.

— Winston Churchill

Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues, for upon it, all others depend.

— Winston Churchill

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule to never criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

— Winston Churchill

Danger -- if you meet it promptly and without flinching -- you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

— Winston Churchill

Nothing is so exhilarating in life as to be shot at with no result.

— Winston Churchill

I am ready to meet my maker, but whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

— Winston Churchill

They are decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

— Winston Churchill

The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.

— Winston Churchill

Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.

— Winston Churchill

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount.

— Winston Churchill

Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.

— Winston Churchill

The nose of the bulldog has been slanted backwards so that he can breathe without letting go.

— Winston Churchill

No comment is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again.

— Winston Churchill

I have never accepted what many people have kindly said-namely that I inspired the nation. Their will was resolute and remorseless, and as it proved, unconquerable. It fell to me to express it.

— Winston Churchill

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

— Winston Churchill

It is better to be frightened now than killed hereafter

— Winston Churchill

True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.

— Winston Churchill

If the Almighty were to rebuild the world and asked me for advice, I would have English Channels round every country. And the atmosphere would be such that anything which attempted to fly would be set on fire.

— 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

From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

— Winston Churchill

The price of greatness is responsibility.

— Winston Churchill

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

— Winston Churchill

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.

— Winston Churchill

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

— Winston Churchill

We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.

— Winston Churchill

It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.

— Winston Churchill

Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.

— Winston Churchill

If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another

— Winston Churchill

No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.

— Winston Churchill

Moral of the Work. In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill.

— Winston Churchill

The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.

— Winston Churchill

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles with it.

— Winston Churchill

The nation will find it very hard to look up to the leaders who are keeping their ears to the ground.

— Winston Churchill

I was not the lion, but it fell to me to give the lion's roar.

— Winston Churchill

Personally, I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

— Winston Churchill

There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.

— Winston Churchill

The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.

— Winston Churchill

Logic is a poor guide compared with custom.

— Winston Churchill

The empires of the futures are the empires of the mind.

— Winston Churchill

All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes.

— Winston Churchill

He is a modest little man who has a good deal to be modest about.

— Winston Churchill

There are few virtues that the Poles do not possess and there are few errors they have ever avoided.

— Winston Churchill

Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. [About Russia]

— Winston Churchill

The maxim of the British people is Business as usual.

— Winston Churchill

Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.

— Winston Churchill

There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.

— Winston Churchill

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

— Winston Churchill

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.

— Winston Churchill

These are not dark days: these are great days -- the greatest days our country has ever lived.

— Winston Churchill

Never give in! Never give in! Never, never, never, never -- in nothing great or small, large or petty. Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.

— Winston Churchill

Never, never, never, never give up.

— Winston Churchill

Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer. You have only to persevere to save yourselves.

— Winston Churchill

I'm just preparing my impromptu remarks.

— Winston Churchill

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.

— Winston Churchill

There is in the act of preparing, the moment you start caring.

— Winston Churchill

In war you can be killed only once. In politics, many times.

— Winston Churchill

Politicians have the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterward to explain why it didn't happen.

— Winston Churchill

Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.

— Winston Churchill

Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.

— 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

Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.

— Winston Churchill

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.

— Winston Churchill

Responsibility is the price of greatness.

— Winston Churchill

No crime is so great as daring to excel.

— Winston Churchill

Play the game for more than you can afford to lose... only then will you learn the game.

— Winston Churchill

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

— Winston Churchill

The latest refinements of science are linked with the cruelties of the Stone Age.

— Winston Churchill