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Winston Churchill

510 quotes

• “Fascism and Communism... Polar opposites—no, polar the same!”

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

  Recorded in: Churchill's remark to his son, Randolph Churchill. Quoted in Churchill: The Prophetic Statesman, James C. Humes, Washington D.C., Regnery Publishing (2012), p. 137.

• “[T]hey were gathered together on that platform with one object. They wanted to stop this war of which they had heard so much talk. They would like to stop it while time remained, for we had had enough of the last war not to want another. The seriousness and urgency of the danger was exemplified by the divergency of political opinion represented on the platform. We had reached a fateful milestone in human history.”

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

  Recorded in: Speech at the Albert Hall, London at a cross-party meeting organised by the League of Nations Union "in defence of freedom and peace" (3 December 1936), quoted in The Times (4 December 1936), p. 18

• “...the war between the Nazis and the Communists; the war of the non-God religions, waged with the weapons of the twentieth century. The most striking fact about the new religions was their similarity. They substituted the devil for God and hatred for love.”

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

  Recorded in: Speech at the Albert Hall, London (3 December 1936), quoted in The Times (4 December 1936), p. 18

• “If present dangers were to be averted there must be loyal aid from the whole masses of the people; there must be voluntary and spontaneous comradeship; and there must even be a measure of self-imposed discipline. ... was it not time that the free nations, great or small, here or across the Atlantic Ocean, should take measures necessary to place themselves in a state of security and in a state of adequate defence, not only for their own safety but also that they might hold aloft the beacon-lights of freedom which would carry their rays of encouragement to the thinker and toiler in every land?”

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

  Recorded in: Speech at the Albert Hall, London (3 December 1936), quoted in The Times (4 December 1936), p. 18

• “Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because, as has been said, 'it is the quality which guarantees all others.'”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: In Great Contemporaries, "Alfonso XIII" (1937)

• “The essence and foundation of House of Commons debating is formal conversation. The set speech, the harangue addressed to constituents, or to the wider public out of doors, has never succeeded much in our small wisely-built chamber. To do any good you have got to get down to grips with the subject and in human touch with the audience.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: In Great Contemporaries, "Clemenceau" (1937)

• “Whatever one may think about democratic government, it is just as well to have practical experience of its rough and slatternly foundations. No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: In Great Contemporaries, "Lord Rosebery" (1937)

• “We desire to see the return of a liberal age where Parliaments will guard freedom, where science will open the banqueting halls to the millions, and where what Bismarck once called "practical Christianity" will mitigate suffering and misfortunes.”

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

  Recorded in: 'No Intervention In Spain' (8 January 1937), quoted in Winston Churchill, Step by Step, 1936–1939 (1939; 1947), p. 84

• “It is a strange thing that certain parts of the world should now be wishing to revive the old religious war. There are those non-God religions Nazism and Communism . . . I repudiate both and will have nothing to do with either... They are as alike as two peas. Tweedledum and Tweedledee were violently contrasted compared with them. You leave out God and you substitute the devil.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Manchester Guardian (26 January 1937) speech at Leeds Chamber of Commerce

• “Many Japanese speak English. But they do not think our thoughts. They worship at other shrines; profess another creed; observe a different code. They can no more be moved by Christian pacifism than wolves by the bleating of sheep. We have to deal with a people whose values are in many respects altogether different from our own.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Mission of Japan, Collier's, 20 February 1937.

• “I know that it is the Socialist idea that making profits is a vice, and that making large profits is something of which a man ought to be ashamed. I hold the other view. I consider that the real vice is making losses.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: House of Commons, 1 June 1937. Hansard, Vol 324, Col 883.

• “I do not believe in a major war this year because the French army at present is as large as that of Germany and far more mature. But next year and the year after may carry these Dictator-ridden countries to the climax of their armament and of their domestic embarrassments. We shall certainly need to be ready then.”

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

  Recorded in: Letter to Lord Linlithgow (23 September 1937), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 870

• “The wars fanned the wings of science, and science brought to mankind a thousand blessings, a thousand problems and a thousand perils.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: This Age of Government by Great Dictators, News of the World, 10 October 1937

• “No one in England has ever wished to prevent the fullest expression of Scottish or Welsh traditions and customs. Indeed, their manifestation is regarded with pleasure and pride by the English people. We have reaped great advantages from this tolerant mood.”

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

  Recorded in: 'Yugoslavia and Europe' (29 October 1937), quoted in Winston Churchill, Step by Step, 1936–1939 (1939; 1947), p. 169

• “The peace of Europe dwells under the shield of the French Army. But in a few years the German Army will be much larger than the French and increasingly its equal in maturity. The deadly years of our policy were 1934 and 1935. "The years that the locusts have eaten." I expect we shall experience the consequences of these years in the near future.”

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

  Recorded in: Letter to Lord Linlithgow (3 November 1937), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 886

• “The story of the human race is war. Except for brief and precarious interludes, there has never been peace in the world; and before history began, murderous strife was universal and unending.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Mankind is Confronted by One Supreme Task, News of the World, 14 November 1937

• “[I]t is a horrible thing that a race of people should be attempted to be blotted out of the society in which they have been born, that from their earliest years little children should be segregated and that they should be exposed to scorn and odium. It is very painful. Moreover, it is not only in regard to Jews that there is intolerance. Religious opinions, Protestant and Catholic alike, are subject to a prejudice of which we fondly hoped and were brought up to believe, the nineteenth century had rid the world.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1937 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons on the Nazis (21 December 1937)

• “On Christmas Day, 1914, the German soldiers on the Western Front ceased firing. They placed small Christmas trees on their trenches and declared that on this day there should be peace and goodwill among suffering men. Both sides came out of their trenches and met in the blasted No-Man's Land. They clasped each other's hands, they exchanged gifts and kind words. Together they buried the dead hitherto inaccessible and deprived of the rites which raise men above the brute. Let no man worthy of human stature banish this inspiration from his mind.”

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

  Recorded in: 'Panorama of 1937' (23 December 1937), quoted in Winston Churchill, Step by Step, 1936–1939 (1939; 1947), p. 188

• “The shores of History are strewn with the wrecks of Empires.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Peopling the Wide, Open Spaces of Empire, News of the World, 22 May 1938

• “Everything is overshadowed by the impending trial of will-power which is developing in Europe. I think we shall have to choose in the next few weeks between war and shame, and I have very little doubt what the decision will be.”

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

  Recorded in: Letter to David Lloyd George (13 August 1938), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 962

• “Owing to the neglect of our defences and the mishandling of the German problem in the last five years, we seem to be very near the bleak choice between War and Shame. My feel­ing is that we shall choose Shame, and then have War thrown in a lit­tle later on even more adverse terms than at present.”

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

  Recorded in: Letter to Lord Moyne (September 1938), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 972

• “It is the end of the British Empire.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1930 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Remark to Harold Nicolson after Neville Chamberlain flew to Godesberg to meet Hitler (22 September 1938) , quoted in Harold Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, 1930-1964 (1980), p. 134

• “All is over. Silent, mournful, abandoned, broken, Czechoslovakia recedes into the darkness. She has suffered in every respect by her association with the Western democracies and with the League of Nations, of which she has always been an obedient servant.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (5 October 1938)

• “We in this country, as in other Liberal and democratic countries, have a perfect right to exalt the principle of self-determination, but it comes ill out of the mouths of those in totalitarian States who deny even the smallest element of toleration to every section and creed within their bounds.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (5 October 1938)

• “The stations of uncensored expression are closing down; the lights are going out; but there is still time for those to whom freedom and parliamentary government mean something, to consult together. Let me, then, speak in truth and earnestness while time remains.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Defence of Freedom and Peace (The Lights are Going Out)", radio broadcast to the United States and to London (16 October 1938).

• “I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war I hoped we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations. I am sorry, however, that he has not been mellowed by the great success that has attended him. The whole world would rejoice to see the Hitler of peace and tolerance, and nothing would adorn his name in world history so much as acts of magnanimity and of mercy and of pity to the forlorn and friendless, to the weak and poor... Let this great man search his own heart and conscience before he accuses anyone of being a warmonger.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Mr. Churchill's Reply" in The Times (7 November 1938).

• “Are we going to make a supreme additional effort to remain a great Power, or are we going to slide away into what seem to be easier, softer, less strenuous, less harassing courses, with all the tremendous renunciations which that decision implies? Is not this the moment when all should hear the deep, repeated strokes of the alarm bell, and when all should resolve that it shall be a call to action, and not the knell of our race and fame?”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons (17 November 1938)

• “The Government simply cannot make up their minds, or they cannot get the Prime Minister [Stanley Baldwin] 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.”

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

  Recorded in: While England Slept: A Survey of World Affairs, 1932–1938 (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1938), pp. 326-7

• “I have watched this famous island descending incontinently, fecklessly, the stairway which leads to a dark gulf.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: While England Slept (1938), p. 403

• “War is horrible, but slavery is worse, and you may be sure that the British people would rather go down fighting than live in servitude.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Interview with Kingsley Martin for the New Statesman (7 January 1939)

• “In the main, the theme is emerging of the growth of freedom and law, of the rights of the individual, of the subordination of the State to the fundamental and moral conceptions of an ever-comprehending community. Of these ideas the English-speaking peoples were the authors, then the trustees, and must now become the armed champions. Thus I condemn tyranny in whatever guise and from whatever quarter it presents itself. All this of course has a current application.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1063 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Maurice Ashley on his work on A History of the English Speaking Peoples (12 April 1939), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (1976), p. 1063

• “Everyone can see how communism rots the soul of a nation. How it makes it abject in peace and proves it abominable in war.”

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

• “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: BBC broadcast ("The Russian Enigma"), London, October 1, 1939 (partial text, transcript of the "First Month of War" speech).

• “First, Poland has been again overrun by two of the great powers which held her in bondage for 150 years but were unable to quench the spirit of the Polish nation. The heroic defence of Warsaw shows that the soul of Poland is indestructible, and that she will rise again like a rock which may for a spell be submerged by a tidal wave but which remains a rock.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: BBC broadcast ("The Russian Enigma"), London, October 1, 1939 (First Month of War (excerpt), transcript of the full text).

• “The traditional British view is that character is what matters in a general. They like a solid, simple man, with no newfangled nonsense about him. He should be preternaturally silent. If by chance he thinks at all he should not let this leak out, otherwise confidence would be destroyed.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Today's Battles. Collier's, 7 October 1939.

• “I never "worry" about action, but only about inaction.”

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

  Recorded in: Source: Winston Churchill (Author) and Richard Langworth (Editor) (28. Oktober 2008): Churchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations. New York: PublicAffairs (1st Edition), page 160.

• “In the bitter and increasingly exacting conflict which lies before us we are resolved to keep nothing back, and not to be outstripped by any in service to the common cause. Let the great cities of Warsaw, of Prague, of Vienna banish despair even in the midst of their agony. Their liberation is sure. The day will come when the joybells will ring again throughout Europe, and when victorious nations, masters not only of their foes but of themselves, will plan and build in justice, in tradition, and in freedom a house of many mansions where there will be room for all.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Broadcast (20 January 1940), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (1983), p. 138

• “We have differed and quarrelled in the past but now one bond unites us all—to wage war until victory is won, and never to surrender ourselves to servitude and shame, whatever the cost and the agony must be.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Broadcast (19 May 1940), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (1983), p. 364

• “Side by side ... the British and French peoples have advanced to rescue ... mankind from the foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny which has ever darkened and stained the pages of history. Behind them ... gather a group of shattered States and bludgeoned races: the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Dutch, the Belgians -- upon all of whom the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Radio broadcast, Be Ye Men of Valour, May 19, 1940 (partial text).

• “I believe we shall make them rue the day they try to invade our island. No such discussion can be permitted.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Minute (1 June 1940) in response to the Foreign Office's suggestion that preparations should be made for the evacuation of the Royal Family and the British Government to "some part of the Overseas Empire", quoted in Mar…

• “No, bury them in caves and cellars. None must go. We are going to beat them.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Minute (1 June 1940) in response to the suggestion of Kenneth Clark (Director of the National Gallery) that the National Gallery's paintings should be sent to Canada, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Ch…

• “Every morn brought forth a noble chance, and every chance brought forth a noble knight.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons, June 4, 1940; passage praising the airmen of the Royal Air Force and their efforts during the evacuation of Dunkirk. This is a close paraphrase of Tennyson:

• “Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Speech in the House of Commons, June 18, 1940 "War Situation".

• “I certainly shd welcome any approach to Irish unity: but I have 40 years experience of its difficulties. I cd never be a party to the coercion of Ulster to join the Southern counties: but I am much in favour of their being persuaded. The key to this is de Valera showing some loyalty to Crown & Empire.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter and Minute (18 June 1940), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (1983), p. 433

• “This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this Island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warrior; but let all strive without failing in faith or in duty, and the dark curse of Hitler will be lifted from our age.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Broadcast (14 July 1940), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (1983), p. 665

• “And now go and set Europe ablaze”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Entry from Monday 22 July 1940, foundation of the Special Operations Executive (SOE)

• “Now that they have begun to molest the capital, I want you to hit them hard − and Berlin is the place to hit them.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1939 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: To the Chief of the Air Staff (26 August 1940) after the Luftwaffe bombed London, quoted in John Colville, The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries 1939-1955 (1985), p. 230

• “These cruel, wanton, indiscriminate bombings of London are, of course, a part of Hitler's invasion plans. He hopes, by killing large numbers of civilians, and women and children, that he will terrorise and cow the people of this mighty imperial city ... Little does he know the spirit of the British nation, or the tough fibre of the Londoners.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Radio broadcast during the London Blitz, September 11, 1940. Quoted by Martin Gilbert in Churchill: A Life, Macmillan (1992), p. 675

• “We are waiting for the long-promised invasion. So are the fishes.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Radio broadcast, London, Dieu Protège La France [God protect France], October 21, 1940 (partial text).

• “Goodnight then: sleep to gather strength for the morning. For the morning will come. Brightly will it shine on the brave and true, kindly upon all who suffer for the cause, glorious upon the tombs of heroes. Thus will shine the dawn. Vive la France! Long live also the forward march of the common people in all the lands towards their just and true inheritance, and towards the broader and fuller age.”

  Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1940 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Radio broadcast, London, Dieu Protège La France [God protect France], October 21, 1940 (partial text).

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