Sign in with your pod

Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina

Winston Churchill

510 quotes

• “[T]he British workman has more to hope for from the rising tide of Tory democracy than from the dried up drain-pipe of Radicalism.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1897 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in Claverton Down, Bath (26 July 1897), quoted in Churchill By Himself: The Definitive Collections of Quotations, ed. Richard Langworth, 2008, p. 424

• “Women who discharge their duty to the state viz marrying and giving birth to children are adequately represented by their husbands.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1874 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: A note on the women’s suffrage bill pasted into his copy of the 1874 Annual Register (he was subsequently to change his mind), quoted in Churchill, "Women’s Suffrage, and 'Black Friday,' November 1910", 1897

• “I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the firm ground of Result and Fact.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1898 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War (1898), Chapter III

• “It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1898 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898), Chapter VIII

• “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1898 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898), Chapter X

• “What is the true and original root of Dutch aversion to British rule? It is the abiding fear and hatred of the movement that seeks to place the native on a level with the white man ... the Kaffir is to be declared the brother of the European, to be constituted his legal equal, to be armed with political rights.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1900 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: On the Boer War, London to Ladysmith via Pretoria (1900).

• “There must be room in our army system for nearly everyone who is not grossly idle or grossly stupid. It is not a case of employing incompetent or worthless men, and such should, of course, be expelled from the army. It is a case of finding suitable employment for officers not fit for higher command.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1900 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Officers and Gentlemen, The Saturday Evening Post, 29 December 1900.

• “It may be said, therefore, that the military opinion of the world is opposed to those people who cry 'Democratize the army!' and it must be remembered that an army is not a field upon which persons with Utopian ideas may exercise their political theories, but a weapon for the defence of the State.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: British Cavalry", The Anglo-Saxon Review (March 1901). Reproduced in Collected Essays, Vol I, Churchill at War, Centenary Edition (1976), Library of Imperial History, p. 60

• “I think we shall have to take the Chinese in hand and regulate them. I believe that as civilized nations become more powerful they will get more ruthless, and the time will come when the world will impatiently bear the existence of great barbaric nations who may at any time arm themselves and menace civilized nations. I believe in the ultimate partition of China — I mean ultimate. I hope we shall not have to do it in our day. The Aryan stock is bound to triumph.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1902 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech and interview at the University of Michigan, 1902.

• “The ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year – and to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1902 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Newspaper interview (1902), when asked what qualities a politician required, Halle, Kay, Irrepressible Churchill. Cleveland: World, 1966. cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 489

• “The old Conservative Party, with its religious convictions and constitutional principles, will disappear, and a new Party will arise like perhaps the Republican Party of the United States of America—rich, materialist, and secular—whose opinions will turn on tariffs, and who will cause the lobbies to be crowded with the touts of protected industries.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (28 May 1903)

• “It is the the­ory of the Pro­tec­tion­ist that imports are an evil. He thinks that if you shut out the for­eign imported man­u­fac­tured goods you will make these goods your­selves, in addi­tion to the goods which you make now, includ­ing those goods which we make to exchange for the for­eign goods that come in. If a man can believe that he can believe any­thing. (Laugh­ter.) We Free-traders say it is not true. To think you can make a man richer by putting on a tax is like a man think­ing that he can stand in a bucket and lift him­self up by the han­dle. (Laugh­ter and cheers.)”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1807 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech (1807-1908); Robert Rhodes James, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963, Chelsea House Publishers / R.R. Bowker Company (1974), Vol. I, p. 261; ISBN 0835206939

• “Governments create nothing and have nothing to give but what they have first taken away — you may put money in the pockets of one set of Englishmen, but it will be money taken from the pockets of another set of Englishmen, and the greater part will be spilled on the way. Every vote given for Protection is a vote to give Governments the right of robbing Peter to pay Paul and charging the public a handsome commission on the job.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1905 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Why I am a Free Trader," Chapter I in T.W. Stead's journal Coming Men on Coming Questions (April 13, 1905), bottom p. 9.

• “The doc­trines that by keep­ing out for­eign goods more wealth, and con­se­quently more employ­ment, will be cre­ated at home, are either true or they are not true. We con­tend that they are not true. We con­tend that for a nation to try to tax itself into pros­per­ity is like a man stand­ing in a bucket and try­ing to lift him­self up by the han­dle.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Politics are almost as exciting as war, and – quite as dangerous ... [I]n war, you can only be killed once. But in politics many times.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: From a conversational exchange with Harold Begbie, as cited in Master Workers, Begbie, Methuen & Co. (1906), p. 177.

• “For my own part I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities which he excites among his opponents. I have always set myself not merely to relish but to deserve thoroughly their censure.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: November 17, 1906, Institute of Journalists Dinner, London; in Churchill by Himself (2008), ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 392

• “I submit respectfully to the House as a general principle that our responsibility in this matter is directly proportionate to our power. Where there is great power there is great responsibility, where there is less power there is less responsibility, and where there is no power there can, I think, be no responsibility.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1906 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: In the House of Commons, February 28, 1906 speech South African native races

• “Taxes are an evil—a necessary evil, but still an evil, and the fewer of them we have the better.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1907 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Churchill By Himself: The Definitive Collections of Quotations, ed. Richard Langworth, 2008, p. 424, (1907, 12 February)

• “And what a noble medium the English language is. It is not possible to write a page without experiencing positive pleasure at the richness and variety, the flexibility and the profoundness of our mother-tongue. If an English writer cannot say what he has to say in English, and in simple English, it is probably not worth saying. What a pity it is that English is not more generally studied.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “They knew what to expect when their opponents returned to power a party of great vested interests—corruption at home, aggression to cover it up abroad, the trickery of tariff juggles, the tyranny of a well-fed party machine; sentiment by the bucketful, patriotism and Imperialism by the Imperial pint, the open hand at the public Exchequer, the open door at the publichouse, dear food for the million, cheap labour for the millionaire. That was the policy which the Tory party offered them, and that was the policy which he asked them to strike at with the battle-axe of Scotland.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1908 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in Kinnaird Hall, Dundee, Scotland (8 May 1908), quoted in The Times (9 May 1908), p. 14

• “The Times is speechless, and takes three columns to express its speechlessness.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1908 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech at Kinnaird Hall, Dundee, Scotland ("The Dundee Election"), May 14, 1908, in Liberalism and the Social Problem (1909), Churchill, BiblioBazaar (Second Edition, 2006), p. 148

• “Uncounted generations will trample heedlessly upon our tombs. What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone? How else can we put ourselves in harmonious relation with the great verities and consolations of the infinite and the eternal? And I avow my faith that we are marching towards better days. Humanity will not be cast down. We are going on swinging bravely forward along the grand high road and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the sun.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1908 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech at Kinnaird Hall, Dundee, Scotland ("Unemployment"), October 10, 1908, in Liberalism and the Social Problem (1909), Churchill, Echo Library (2007), p. 87

• “The quarrel between a tremendous democratic electorate and a one-sided hereditary chamber of wealthy men has often been threatened, has often been averted, has been long debated, has been long delayed, but it has always been inevitable, and it has come at last. It is now open, it is now flagrant, and it must now be carried to a conclusion.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The People's Rights [1909] (1970), p. 20

• “There is no difficulty in vindicating the principle of a hereditary monarchy. The experience of every country and of all ages, the practical reasonings of common sense, arguments of the highest theory, arguments of most commonplace convenience, all unite to show the wisdom which places the supreme leadership of the State beyond the reach of private ambition and above the shocks and changes of party strife.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The People's Rights [1909] (1970), p. 24

• “The House of Lords, in rejecting the Budget which provides for the national expenditure of the year, are refusing, for the first time since the great Rebellion, aids and supplies to the Crown, and by that fact and by their intrusion upon finance they commit an act of violence against the British Constitution. There is no precedent of any kind for the rejection of a Budget Bill by the House of Lords in all the long annals of the British Parliament, or, before that, in the still more venerable annals of the English Parliament. The custom of centuries forbids their intrusion upon finance.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The People's Rights [1909] (1970), p. 25

• “All civilization", said Lord Curzon, quoting Renan, "all civilization has been the work of aristocracies". ... It would be much more true to say "The upkeep of aristocracies has been the hard work of all civilizations".”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The People's Rights [1909] (1970), pp. 53-54

• “There is nothing economically unsound in increasing temporarily and artificially the demand for labour during a period of temporary and artificial contraction. There is a plain need of some averaging machinery to regulate and even-up the general course of the labour market. ... by every step in that direction you would free thousands of your fellow-countrymen from undeserved agony and ruin.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The People's Rights [1909] (1970), pp. 133-134

• “We have entered upon a period of crisis and conflict more grave and crucial than any living man has known, and it is a conflict which I think has been more deliberately undertaken and will be more resolutely fought through by both sides than any political conflict that we can recall. Terribly important as economic and constitutional questions may be, the fiscal system of a country and the system of Government which prevails in a country are only means to an end, and that end must be to create conditions favourable to the social and moral welfare of the masses of the citizens.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The People's Rights [1909] (1970), p. 137

• “The Budget, and the policy of the Budget, is the first conscious attempt on the part of the State to build up a better and a more scientific organization of society for the workers of this country.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The People's Rights [1909] (1970), pp. 146-147

• “Liberalism supplies at once the higher impulse and the practicable path; it appeals to persons by sentiments of generosity and humanity; it proceeds by courses of moderation. By gradual steps, by steady effort from day to day, from year to year, Liberalism enlists hundreds of thousands upon the side of progress and popular democratic reform whom militant Socialism would drive into violent Tory reaction... The cause of the Liberal Party is the cause of the left-out millions.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The People's Rights [1909] (1970), pp. 152-153

• “I look forward to the universal establishment of minimum standards of life and labour, and their progressive elevation as the increasing energies of production may permit. I do not think that Liberalism in any circumstances can cut itself off from this fertile field of social effort, and I would recommend you not to be scared in discussing any of these proposals, just because some old woman comes along and tells you they are Socialistic.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1909 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The People's Rights [1909] (1970), p. 154

• “The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks constitutes a national and race danger which is impossible to exaggerate. I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed before another year has passed.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1910 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: (Home Secretary) Churchill to Prime Minister Asquith on compulsory sterilization of 'the feeble-minded and insane'; cited, as follows (excerpted from longer note): It is worth noting that eugenics was not a fringe movem…

• “'I propose that 100,000 degenerate Britons should be forcibly sterilized and others put in labour camps to halt the decline of the British race.'”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1910 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: As Home Secretary in a 1910 Departmental Paper. The original document is in the collection of Asquith's papers at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Also quoted in Clive Ponting, "Churchill" (Sinclair Stevenson 1994)

• “I consider that every workman is well advised to join a trade union. I cannot conceive how any man standing undefended against the powers that be in this world could be so foolish, if he can possibly spare the money from the maintenance of his family, not to associate himself with an organisation to protect the rights and interests of labour.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (30 May 1911)

• “There can be no question of the military forces of the Crown "intervening in a labour dispute" in the proper sense of the words. That, so-far as it can be done by the Government, is a function of the Board of Trade. It is only when a trade dispute is accompanied by riot, intimidation, or other violations of the law, or when a serious interruption is caused or likely to be caused to the supply of necessary commodities, that the military can be called on to support the police; and then their duty is to maintain the law, not to interfere in the matter in dispute.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1911 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (15 August 1911)

• “The Titanic disaster is the prevailing theme here. The story is a good one. The strict observance of the great traditions of the sea towards women & children reflects nothing but honour upon our civilization... I cannot help feeling proud of our race & its traditions as proved by this event. Boat loads of women & children tossing on the sea — safe & sound — & the rest — Silence. Honour to their memory.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1542 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to his wife (18 April 1912), quoted in Randolph S. Churchill, Winston S. Churchill, Volume II Companion Part 3 1911–1914 (1969), pp. 1542-1543

• “Everything tends towards catastrophe and collapse. I am interested, geared up and happy. Is it not horrible to be made like this?”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Like chasing a quinine pill around a cow pasture.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: On playing golf: as cited in The quote verifier: who said what, where, and when (2006), Keyes, Macmillan, p. 27

• “Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer. You have only to persevere to save yourselves, and to save all those who rely upon you. You have only to go right on, and at the end of the road, be it short or long, victory and honor will be found.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Remarks at the Guildhall, 4 September 1914, after the first British naval victory of World War I, the sinking of three German cruisers in the Battle of Heligoland Bight, as cited in Churchill: A Life, Martin Gilbert, Ma…

• “I am finished.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1915 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: On losing his position at the Admiralty in 1915. Said to Lord Riddell, as cited in Maxims and Reflections, Chapter I (On Himself), Churchill, Houghton Mifflin Company (1947).

• “[The] truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons, May 17, 1916 "Royal Assent".

• “We are not a young people with an innocent record and a scanty inheritance... We have engrossed to ourselves an altogether disproportionate share of the wealth and traffic of the world. We have got all we want in territory, and our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions, mainly acquired by violence, largely maintained by force, often seems less reasonable to others than to us.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1914 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: In a comment to his British Cabinet colleagues in January 1914 in a confidential paper. Cited in John Darwin, The Empire Project, Cambridge 2010, p268.

• “Only the final results can prove whether military autocracies or Parliamentary Governments are more likely — take them for all in all — to preserve the welfare and safety of great nations. If the result is inconclusive, the conflict will be renewed after an uneasy interval. But when an absolute decision is obtained the system of the victors — whoever they are — will probably be adopted to a very great extent by the vanquished.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: On the Great War, The Sinister Hypothesis, The Sunday Pictorial, 9 July 1916.

• “The true characteristic of all British strategy lies in the use of amphibious power. Not the sea alone, but the land and the sea together: not the Fleet alone, but the Army in the hand of the Fleet.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Great Amphibian, The Sunday Pictorial, 23 July 1916.

• “I think a curse should rest on me — because 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 (1874–1965) first seen 1916 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: A letter to a friend (1916)

• “No compromise on the main purpose; no peace till victory; no pact with unrepentant wrong -- that is the Declaration of July 4th, 1918.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1918 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: At a joint Anglo-American rally in Westminster, July 4, 1918, speaking against calls for a negotiated truce with Germany. As printed in War aims & peace ideals: selections in prose & verse (1919), edited by Tucker Brook…

• “Why should anybody make a great fortune out of the war? While everybody has been serving the country, profiteers and contractors & shipping speculators have gained fortunes of a gigantic character. Why shd we be bound to bear the unpopularity of defending old Runciman's ill-gotten gains? I wd reclaim everything above £10,000 (to let the small fry off) in reduction of the War Debt.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1900 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to David Lloyd George (21 November 1918), quoted in Paul Addison, Churchill On The Home Front, 1900–1955 (1992), p. 197

• “One might as well legalise sodomy as recognise the Bolsheviks.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Paris, 24 January 1919. Churchill: A Life. Gilbert, Martin (1992). New York: Holt, p. 408.

• “The aid which we can give to those Russian armies which are now engaged in fighting against the foul baboonery of Bolshevism can be given by arms, munitions, equipment, and by the technical services. It is a malicious statement against the interests of the British Empire to suggest that it is necessary for us to prolong the action of the Military Service Act because of enterprises which we have on foot in Russia.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1897 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Mansion House speech (19 February 1919); Robert Rhodes James, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches 1897-1963 vol. 3, 1914-1922, vol. 3 (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1974), 2671; Norman Rose, Churchill…

• “Germany will recover and Russian will rise... our policy must be directed to prevent a union between German militarism and Russian Bolshevism.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1919 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Fortnightly Review, July 1919, William Harbutt Dawson, "The Liabilities of the Treaty," p. 10, speech in Dundee on May 14, 1919

More