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Winston Churchill

510 quotes

• “The truth is that Gandhi-ism and all it stands for will, sooner or later, have to be grappled with, and finally crushed. It is no use trying to satisfy a tiger by feeding him with cat's-meat. The sooner this is realised, the less trouble and misfortune will there be for all concerned.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in Cannon Street Hotel, London (12 December 1930) at the first public meeting of the Indian Empire Society, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 377

• “I remember, when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum's circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities. But the exhibit on the programme which I most desired to see was the one described as "The Boneless Wonder." My parents judged that that spectacle would be too revolting and demoralising for my youthful eyes, and I have waited 50 years to see the boneless wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: A jibe at Prime Minister (and First Lord of the Treasury) Ramsay MacDonald during a speech in the House of Commons, January 28, 1931 "Trade Disputes and Trade Unions (Amendment) Bill".

• “It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the East, striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal palace, while he is still organising and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representatives of the King-Emperor. Such a spectacle can only increase the unrest in India and the danger to which white people there are exposed. It can only encourage all the forces which are hostile to British authority.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech to the Council of the West Essex Conservative Association on Gandhi's meeting with the Viceroy of India (23 February 1931), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 3…

• “If Great Britain lost her Empire and India and her share in world trade and her sea power, she would be like a vast whale stranded in one your Scottish bays, which swam in upon the tide and then was left to choke and rot upon the sands. We should be like a great shop emporium in a district from which prosperity has for ever departed. We least of all peoples and races can afford to fail. Failure to us does not mean merely that we shall not improve. It means that we shall be ruined and frozen out.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Rectorial address ("The present decline of Parliamentary government in Great Britain") to Edinburgh University (5 March 1931), quoted in The Times (6 March 1931), p. 19

• “India is no more a political personality than Europe. India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the equator.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech at the Constitutional Club, London (26 March 1931).

• “Men and kings must be judged in the testing moments of their lives. Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because, as has been said, it is the quality which guarantees all others. Courage, physical and moral, King Alfonso has proved on every occasion of personal danger or political stress. Many years ago in the face of a difficult situation Alfonso made the proud declaration, no easy boast in Spain, “I was born on the throne, I shall die on it.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: In an article published in “Collier’s” magazine about King Alfonso XIII of Spain on 27 June 1931. Source: 1931 June 27, Collier’s, Unlucky Alfonso by Winston Churchill, Start Page 11, Quote Page 49, Column 2, P. F. Coll…

• “In the twinkling of an eye I found myself without an office, without a seat, without a party, and without an appendix.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Election Memories", The Strand Magazine (September 1931).

• “We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Fifty Years Hence", The Strand Magazine (December 1931).

• “...live dangerously; take things as they come; dread naught, all will be well.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: My New York Misadventure, The Daily Mail, 4 and 5 January 1932

• “We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.”

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

  Recorded in: Lecture at Cleveland, Ohio (February 3, 1932), reported in Robert Rhodes James, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963 (1974), vol. 5, p. 5130; referring to the theory that over-production caused th…

• “[Fascism] is not a sign-post which would direct us here, for I firmly believe that our long experienced democracy will be able to preserve a parliamentary system of government with whatever modifications may be necessary from both extremes of arbitrary rule.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech to the Anti-Socialist and Anti-Communist Union (17 February 1933), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 457

• “I am strongly of opinion that we require to strengthen our armaments by air and upon the seas in order to make sure that we are still judges of our own fortunes, our own destinies and our own action... Not to have an adequate air force in the present state of the world is to compromise the foundations of national freedom and independence.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1933 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (14 March 1933)

• “We know that he has, more than any other man, the gift of compressing the largest number of words into the smallest amount of thought.”

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

  Recorded in: A jibe directed at Ramsay MacDonald, during a speech in the House of Commons, March 23, 1933 "European Situation". This quote is similar to a remark ("He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I …

• “Broadly speaking, human beings may be divided into three classes: those who are toiled to death, those who are worried to death, and those who are bored to death.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Have You a Hobby?, Answers, 21 April 1934

• “What is the dominant fact of the situation? Germany is arming...Germany is arming particularly in the air. ... it seems of the utmost importance, not only that we should lose no time in putting ourselves in an adequate position of defence but, that we should keep close and friendly relations with other great Powers of a friendly character who have not fallen into the error which has overtaken us of late years, of neglecting the essentials of our own security.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1934 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (13 July 1934)

• “I am afraid that if you look intently at what is moving towards Great Britain, you will see that the only choice open is the old grim choice our forbears had to face, namely, whether we shall submit or whether we shall prepare. Whether we shall submit to the will of a stronger nation or whether we shall prepare to defend our rights, our liberties and indeed our lives.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: On German rearmament; BBC broadcast (16 November 1934), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 566

• “If England had not resisted German militarism, in my view the German hegemony of Europe would have been established and our island would have had to face a united Continental army. It is the same old story from the days of Marlborough and Napoleon.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to G. M. Trevelyan (3 January 1935), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 623

• “But what is this India Home Rule Bill? I will tell you. It is a gigantic quilt of jumbled crotchet work. There is no theme; there is no pattern; there is no agreement; there is no conviction; there is no simplicity; there is no courage. It is a monstrous monument of shame built by pygmies.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: BBC broadcast (29 January 1935), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 595

• “The storm clouds are gathering over the European scene. Our defences have been neglected. Danger is in the air...yes, I say in the air. The mighty discontented nations are reaching out with the strong hands to regain what they have lost; nay, to gain a predominance which they have never had. Is this, then, the time to plunge our vast dependency of India into the melting-pot?”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: BBC broadcast (29 January 1935), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 596

• “War arises from both sides feeling they have a hope of victory.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The King's Twenty-Five Years. III. The Coronation and the Agadir Crisis. The Evening Standard, 4 May 1935

• “Everyone can see the arguments against the English-speaking peoples becoming the policemen of the world.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: To End War, Collier's, 29 June 1935

• “Mr. Gandhi has gone very high in my esteem since he stood up for the untouchables ... Well, you have the opportunity now. I do not like the [Indian Home Rule] Bill but it is now on the Statute Book. I am not going to bother any more, but do not give us a chance to say we anticipated a breakdown...So make it a success. ... My test of improvement in the lot of the masses, morally as well as materially. I do not care whether you are more or less loyal to Great Britain ... Tell Mr. Gandhi to use the powers that are offered and make the thing a success.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: G.D. Birla's account of his conversation with Churchill in a letter to Gandhi (September 1935), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 618

• “I am genuinely sympathetic towards India. I have got real fears about the future. India, I feel is a burden on us. We have got to maintain an army and for the sake of India we have to maintain Singapore and Near East strength. If India could look after herself we would be delighted. ... I would be only too delighted if the Reforms are a success. I have all along felt that there are fifty Indias. But you have got the thing now; make it a success and if you do I will advocate your getting much more.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: G.D. Birla's account of his conversation with Churchill in a letter to Gandhi (September 1935), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 619

• “Germany is already well on her way to become, and must become incomparably, the most heavily armed nation in the world and the nation most completely ready for war. There is the dominant factor; there is the factor which dwarfs all others, the factor which we find affecting the movements of politics and diplomacy in every country throughout Europe...we cannot have any anxieties comparable to the anxiety caused by German re-armament. The House will pardon me if I continue to press that anxiety upon it.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (24 October 1935)

• “We cannot afford to see Nazidom in its present phase of cruelty and intolerance, with all its hatreds and all its gleaming weapons, paramount in Europe at the present time.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (24 October 1935)

• “One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hitler and His Choice", The Strand Magazine (November 1935)

• “We cannot tell whether Hitler will be the man who will once again let loose upon the world another war in which civilisation will irretrievably succumb, or whether he will go down in history as the man who restored honour and peace of mind to the Great Germanic nation.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hitler and His Choice", The Strand Magazine (November 1935)

• “Hitherto, Hitler's triumphant career has been borne onwards, not only by a passionate love of Germany, but by currents of hatred so intense as to sear the souls of those who swim upon them.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Hitler and His Choice", The Strand Magazine (November 1935), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 680

• “A free Press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that freemen prize; it is the most dangerous foe of tyranny.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: You Get It In Black And White, Collier's, 28 December 1935

• “While the Hindu elaborates his argument, the Moslem sharpens his sword. Between these two races and creeds, containing as they do so many gifted arid charming beings in all the glory of youth, there is no intermarriage. The gulf is impassable. If you took the antagonisms of France and Germany, and the antagonisms of Catholics and Protestants, and compounded them and multiplied them ten-fold, you would not equal the division which separates these two races intermingled by scores of millions in the cities and plains of India.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1931 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Winston Churchill, speech on March 18, 1931 in Albert Hall, London. in : Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations by Richard Langworth

• “There is a great danger that the Parliamentary nations and merciful, tolerant forces in the world will be knocked out quite soon by the heavily armed, unmoral dictatorships. But I believe there is still time to organise a European mass, and perhaps a world mass which would confront them, overawe them, and perhaps let their peoples loose upon them.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Robert Cecil (9 April 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 721

• “It seems a mad business to confront these dictators without weapons or military force, and at the same time try to tame and cow the spirit of our people with peace films, anti-recruiting propaganda and resistance to defence measures. Unless the free and law-respecting nations are prepared to organise, arm and combine, they are going to be smashed up. This is going to happen quite soon. But I believe we still have a year to combine and marshal superior forces in defence of the League and its Covenant.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Robert Cecil (9 April 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 722

• “I certainly do not take the view that a war between England and Germany is inevitable. I fear very gravely however unless something happens to the Nazi regime in Germany there will be a devastating war in Europe, and it may come earlier than you expect. The only chance of stopping it is to have a union of nations, all well-armed and bound to defend each other, and thus confront the Nazi aggression with over-whelming force.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Lord Londonderry (6 May 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 732

• “You are also mistaken in supposing that I have an anti-German obsession. British policy for four hundred years has been to oppose the strongest power in Europe by weaving together a combination of other countries strong enough to face the bully. Sometimes it is Spain, sometimes the French monarchy, sometimes the French Empire, sometimes Germany. I have no doubt who it is now...It is thus through the centuries we have kept our liberties and maintained our life and power.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Lord Londonderry (6 May 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 733

• “If I read the future aright Hitler's government will confront Europe with a series of outrageous events and ever-growing military might. It is events which will show our dangers, though for some the lesson will come too late.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Lord Londonderry (6 May 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 733

• “It must be very painful to a man of Lord Hugh Cecil's natural benevolence and human charity to find so many of God's children wandering simultaneously so far astray ... In these circumstances I would venture to suggest to my noble friend, whose gifts and virtues I have all my life admired, that some further refinement is needed in the catholicity of his condemnations.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to The Times on 12 May 1936, responding to Lord Cecil equally denouncing Italy, France, Japan, the USSR, and Germany; Churchill said that the French did not deserve as much criticism as the others. Quoted by John…

• “We have pushed taxation of wealth to a point in Great Britain where in many cases the yield would be greater if the rate were less. The idea that prosperity can be wooed by chasing millionaires is one of the most common and most foolish of modern popular delusions.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Soapbox Messiahs, Collier's, 20 June 1936

• “Through our own folly and refusal to face realities and deal with evil tendencies while they were yet controllable, we have allowed brutal and intolerant forces to gain almost unchallenged supremacy in Europe and have placed ourselves in a position of weakness and peril, the like of which our history does not record for two and a half centuries.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech to the New Commonwealth Society (15 July 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 764

• “I can well imagine some circles of smart society, some groups of wealthy financiers, and the elements in this country which are attracted by the idea of a Government strong enough to keep the working classes in order; people who hate democracy and freedom, I can well imagine such people accommodating themselves fairly easy to Nazi domination. But the Trade Unionists of Britain, the intellectuals of Socialism and Radicalism, they could no more bear it than the ordinary British Tory. It would be intolerable.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in Horsham (23 July 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 768

• “I do not like to hear people talking of England, Germany and Italy forming up against European communism.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Charles Corbin, the French Ambassador to Britain (31 July 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 782

• “We must recognise that we have a great treasure to guard; that the inheritance in our possession represents the prolonged achievement of the centuries; that there is not one of our simple uncounted rights today for which better men than we are have not died on the scaffold or the battlefield. We have not only a great treasure; we have a great cause. Are we taking every measure within our power to defend that cause?”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech at Théâtre des Ambassadeurs, Paris, 24 September 1936, "Thank God For the French Army

• “The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame. The world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is some one outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be spread in vain; some one strangely enfranchised, untamed, untrammelled by convention, moving independent of the ordinary currents of human action.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: At an unveiling of a memorial to T. E. Lawrence at the Oxford High School for Boys (3 October 1936); as quoted in Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of T.E. Lawrence (1989) by Jeremy M Wilson.

• “We live in a country where the people own the Government and not in a country where the Government owns the people. Thought is free, speech is free, religion is free, no one can say that the Press is not free. In short, we live in a liberal society, the direct product of the great advances in human dignity, stature and well-being which will ever be the glory of the nineteenth century.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: I Ask You—What Price Freedom? Answers, 24 October 1936.

• “It will not benefit the world if we succeed in banishing the old-fashioned wars of nations only to clear the board for social and doctrinal wars of even greater ferocity and destructiveness. This, indeed, is a growing danger. We were told that the old wars of religion had ended, but that is not much comfort if the wars of various kinds of secular religions or non-God religions are to begin and are to make Europe the arena of their hideous conflict, and if all that makes life worth living to the mass of the people is to be destroyed in the process.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: I Ask You—What Price Freedom? Answers, 24 October 1936.

• “Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.”

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

  Recorded in: On Stanley Baldwin, as cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), Ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 322

• “I have heard it said that the Government had no mandate for rearmament until the General Election. Such a doctrine is wholly inadmissible. The responsibility of Ministers for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (12 November 1936)

• “Anyone can see what the position is. The Government simply cannot make up their mind, or they cannot get the Prime Minister to make up his mind. So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent. So we go on preparing more months and years — precious, perhaps vital to the greatness of Britain — for the locusts to eat.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons, November 12, 1936 "Debate on the Address", criticizing Stanley Baldwin's record on rearmament against Hitler.

• “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons, November 12, 1936 "Debate on the Address

• “I am trying to marshal all the forces I can to prevent this coming war, and to strengthen Britain.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Guy Fleetwood Wilson (13 November 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 800

• “All the left wing intelligentsia are coming to look to me for protection and I will give it wholeheartedly in return for their aid in the rearmament of Britain.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Randolph Churchill (13 November 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 800

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