Voted to Be the Greatest Briton of All Time
He led his country to victory in the “war to end all wars”
One of the foremost political leaders in the 20th century, and ranked as the Greatest Briton of all time, he led The United Kingdom to victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. He admired the United States, and once wrote in a letter to his American born mother “what an extraordinary people the American’s are!”
He fought in the Boer War in South Africa and became a prisoner of war from which he later escaped. Wanted “dead or alive” he carefully traveled 300 miles to safety in Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique).
Throughout his life he was a prolific writer publishing many books, winning the Nobel prize in Literature in 1953. He was also an artist, producing more than 500 canvases during the second half of his life. One final tidbit is he was the first to use the term “OMG” in a letter in 1917, more than 100 years ago!
Born Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill in Oxfordshire, England in 1874. He lived a long life dying in 1965 at the age of 90.
Churchill is without doubt one of the most often quoted people in the past century. I hope you enjoy some of my favorites below. I have arranged them by subject to make it simple to use as a reference for the future.
Enjoy!
Writing
“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy then an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then it becomes a tyrant and, in the last stage, just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.”
Wit
“I have never developed indigestion from eating my words.”
“You must look at facts, because they look at you.”
“We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.”
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“It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic.”
“If we win, nobody will care. If we lose, there will be nobody to care.”
“You cannot cure cancer by a majority.”
“It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.”
Optimism
“Do not let us speak of darker days; let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days: these are great days — the greatest days our country has ever lived.”
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
“For myself I am an optimist — it does not seem to be much use being anything else.”
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“I like things to happen, and if they don’t happen I like to make them happen.”
“Danger gathers upon our path. We cannot afford — we have no right — to look back. We must look forward”
“It is wonderful what great strides can be made when there is a resolute purpose behind them.”
Humor
“Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.”
“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile — hoping it will eat him last.”
“Dictators ride to and fro on tigers from which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.”
“Mr. Jorrocks described fox hunting as providing all the glory of war with only 33 percent of its danger.”
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“The English never draw a line without blurring it.”
“My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.”
“Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.”
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“There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.”
“I may be drunk, miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.”
“I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
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“Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.”
“Nothing makes a man more reverent than a library.”
“I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”
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“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
“There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.”
Success and Failure
“You must put your head into the lion’s mouth if the performance is to be a success.”
“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.”
“It is no use saying ‘we are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”
“Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.”
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“Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts.”
“There is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.”
“Time and money are largely interchangeable terms.”
“Never, never, never give up.”
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“To improve is to change. To be perfect is to change often.”
“Today we may say aloud before an awe-struck world, ‘We are still masters of our fate. We still are captain of our souls.’”
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“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.”
“Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking our potential.”
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“Things are not always right because they are hard, but if they are right one must not mind if they are also hard.”
“To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.”
“There is always much to be said for not attempting more than you can do and for making a certainty of what you try. But this principle, like others in life and war, has it exceptions.”
Victory
“The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.”
“Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the hard may be; for without victory there is no survival. ”
Courage
“Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it has been said, it is the quality which guarantees all others.”
“Without courage, all other virtues lose their meaning.”
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, it’s also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
“We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
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“Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
“One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!”
“The nose of the bulldog has been slanted backwards so that he can breathe without letting go.”
Life
“The true guide of life is to do what is right.”
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”
“Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed.”
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“The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.”
“Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”
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“You have enemies? Good. It means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
“In the course of my life I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.”
Wisdom
“All wisdom is not new wisdom.”
“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
“I never worry about action, but only inaction.”
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“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil tears and sweat.”
“The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.”
“The first duty of the university is to teach wisdom, not a trade; character, not technicalities. We want a lot of engineers in the modern world, but we do not want a world of engineers.”
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Nourish your hopes, but do not overlook realities.
“Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.”
“If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find we have lost the future.”
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“Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.”
“It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.”
“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”
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“Harsh laws are at times better than no laws at all.” —
“One ought to be just before one is generous.”
“It is no part of my case that I am always right.”
“It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.”
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“Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.”
“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”
“There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right and not to fear to do or say what you believe to be right.”
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“All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honour; duty; mercy; hope.”
“The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”
Capitalism and Socialism
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
“If you destroy a free market you create a black market.”
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“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
“Bolshevism is a great evil…arisen out of great social evils.”
Country and Government
“The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.”
“A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot long endure.”
“The British Constitution is mainly British common sense.”
“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, 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.”
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“If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.”
“It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
“Evils can be created much quicker than they can be cured.”
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“When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.”
“Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.”
Politics
“Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.”
“Politics is more dangerous than war, for in war you are only killed once.”
“Politics is 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.”
War
“War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.”
“War never pays its dividends in cash on the money it costs.”
“No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it.”
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“In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”
“Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.”
“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.”
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“Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace, and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.”
“I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting.”
“France, though armed to the teeth, is pacifist to the core.”
History
“History is written by the victors.”
“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”
“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.”
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
Churchill had a full and fruitful life. Did you know that Churchill wrote more than Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare combined? You can find many of his works on Project Gutenburg.
It was difficult sifting through and leaving out so many great quotes, but I hope these have given you a peek into this amazing man’s life. I want to leave with a challenge for your life from one of his most famous quotes:
“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 honour and good sense.“
Now go. Seize the day! Make your life count!
Bill Abbate Leadership Writer and Editor in ILLUMINATION.
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