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Winston Churchill

510 quotes

• “I cannot conceive that Britain would be an ordinary member of a Federal Union limited to Europe in any period which can at present be foreseen. We should in my opinion favour and help forward all developments on the Continent which arise naturally from a removal of barriers, from the process of reconciliation, and blessed oblivion of the terrible past, and also from our common dangers in the future and present. Although a hard-and-fast concrete federal constitution for Europe is not within the scope of practical affairs, we should help, sponsor and aid in every possible way the movement towards European unity. We should seek steadfastly for means to become intimately associated with it.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Schuman Plan, Speech in the House of Commons, June 27, 1950

• “Let us look back on the conduct of Mr. Attlee and his friends in the years before the war. The Labour Party denounced the Baldwin Government for "planning a vast and expensive rearmament programme"...Mr. Attlee said on November 10, 1935: "The National Government is preparing a great programme of rearmament which will endanger the peace of the world". Mr. Morrison, in the same month, said "the Government leaders are all urging a policy of rearmament, and Mr. Chamberlain is ready and anxious to spend millions of pounds on machines of destruction". I suppose those must have been the aeroplanes which saved us in the Battle of Britain. And, again: "Every vote for the Unionists would be a vote for an international race in arms, and a vote for that was a vote for war". Such was the language of the Socialist leaders in the years while Hitler's Germany was rearming night and day. ... And yet...at the election of 1945, the Labour Party gained great credit by denouncing the Chamberlain Government as guilty men for not having made larger and more timely arrangements.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in Woodford (12 October 1951), quoted in The Times (13 October 1951), p. 9

• “I look back with pride to the great measures of social reform—Unemployment Insurance, Labour Exchanges, Safety in the Coalmines, bringing Old Age Pensions down from seventy to sixty-five years of age, the Widows' and Orphans' Pensions—for which I have been responsible both as a Liberal and a Conservative Minister. I find comfort in the broad harmony of thought which prevails between the modern Tory democracy and the doctrines of the famous Liberal leaders of the past. I am sure that in accord with their speeches and writings, men like Asquith, Morley and Grey, whom I knew so well in my youth, would have regarded the establishment of a Socialist State and the enforcement of the collectivist theory as one of the worst evils that could befall Britain and her slowly-evolved, long-cherished way of life.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech at Huddersfield Town Hall (15 October 1951), quoted in Winston Churchill, Stemming the Tide: Speeches 1951 and 1952 (1953), p. 149

• “Last week I watched the Trooping the Colour and our young Queen riding at the head of her Guards... Certainly no one of British race could contemplate such a spectacle without pride. But no thinking man or woman could escape the terrible question: on what does it all stand? It does indeed seem hard that the traditions and triumphs of a thousand years should be challenged by the ebb and flow of markets and commercial and financial transactions...and that we have to watch from month to month the narrow margins upon which our solvency and consequently our reputation and influence depend. But fifty million islanders growing food for only thirty millions, and dependent for the rest upon their exertions, their skill and their genius, present a problem which has not been seen or at least recorded before. In all history there has never been a community so large, so complex, so sure of its way of life, posed at such dizzy eminence and on so precarious a foundation.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1951 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech at the Savoy Hotel, London (11 June 1952), quoted in Winston Churchill, Stemming the Tide: Speeches 1951 and 1952 (1953), pp. 298-299

• “I read with great interest all that you have written me about what is called Colonialism, namely: bringing forward backward races and opening up the jungles. I was brought up to feel proud of much that we had done. Certainly in India, with all its history, religion and ancient forms of despotic rule, Britain has a story to tell which will look quite well against the background of the coming hundred years... I am sceptical about universal suffrage for the Hottentots even if refined by proportional representation. The British and American Democracies were slowly and painfully forged and even they are not perfect yet.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1040 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to President Eisenhower (8 August 1954), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Never Despair': Winston S. Churchill, 1945–1965 (1988), pp. 1040-1041. Cf. Lord Salisbury: "You would not confide free representative institution…

• “There is widespread belief throughout the free world that, but for American nuclear superiority, Europe would already have been reduced to satellite status and the Iron Curtain would have reached the Atlantic and the Channel. Unless a trustworthy and universal agreement upon disarmament, conventional and nuclear alike, can be reached and an effective system of inspection is established and is actually working, there is only one sane policy for the free world in the next few years. That is what we call defence through deterrents. This we have already adopted and proclaimed. These deterrents may at any time become the parents of disarmament, provided that they deter. To make our contribution to the deterrent we must ourselves possess the most up-to-date nuclear weapons, and the means of delivering them.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (1 March 1955)

• “Hitherto, crowded countries...like the United Kingdom and Western Europe, have had this outstanding vulnerability to carry. But the hydrogen bomb, with its vast range of destruction and the even wider area of contamination, would be effective also against nations whose population hitherto has been so widely dispersed over large land areas as to make them feel that they were not in any danger at all. They, too, become highly vulnerable ... Here again we see the value of deterrents, immune against surprise and well understood by all persons on both sides—I repeat "on both sides"—who have the power to control events. That is why I have hoped for a long time for a top level conference where these matters could be put plainly and bluntly from one friendly visitor to the conference to another. Then it may well be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a stage in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1955 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (1 March 1955)

• “Those who are prone, by temperament and character, to seek sharp and clear-cut solutions of difficult and obscure problems, who are ready to fight whenever some challenge comes from a foreign power, have not always been right. On the other hand, those whose inclination is to bow their heads, to seek patiently and faithfully for peaceful compromise, are not always wrong. On the contrary, in the majority of instances they may be right, not only morally, but from a practical standpoint. How many wars have been averted by patience and persisting good will! Religion and virtue alike lend their sanctions to meekness and humility, not only between men but between nations. How many wars have been precipitated by firebrands! How many misunderstandings which led to wars could have been removed by temporizing! How often have countries fought cruel wars and then after a few years found themselves not only friends but allies!”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Second World War, Volume I : The Gathering Storm (1948) Chapter 17 (The Tragedy of Munich), p .287

• “A number of social problems arose. I had been told that neither smoking nor alcoholic beverages were allowed in the [Saudi] Royal Presence. As I was the host at luncheon I raised the matter at once, and said to the interpreter that if it was the religion of His Majesty [Ibn Saud] to deprive himself of smoking and alcohol I must point out that my rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after, and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them. The King graciously accepted the position. His own cup-bearer from Mecca offered me a glass of water from its sacred well, the most delicious I had ever tasted.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Discussion of an audience with Saudi King Ibn Saud at the Fayoum oasis, Egypt, on February 17, 1945; in The Second World War, Volume VI : Triumph and Tragedy (1953), Chapter 23 (Yalta: Finale), pp. 348-349

• “We have seen that Alfred in his day had never hesitated to use money as well as arms. Ethelred used money instead of arms. He used it in ever-increasing quantities, with ever-diminishing returns ... There is the record of a final payment to the Vikings in 1012. This time forty-eight thousand pounds' weight of silver was extracted, and the oppressors enforce the collection by the sack of Canterbury, holding Archbishop Alphege to ransom, and finally killing him at Greenwich because he refused to coerce his flock to raise the money. The Chronicle states: "All these calamities fell upon us through evil counsel, because tribute was not offered to them at the right time, nor yet were they resisted; but, when they had done the most evil, then was peace made with them. And notwithstanding all this peace and tribute they went everywhere in companies, harried our wretched people, and slew them”

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