Top 25 Quotes by Winston Churchill of 1272 - Page 18

Any clever person can make plans for winning a war if he has no responsibility for carrying them out.

Any clever person can make plans for winning a war if he has no responsibility for carrying them out.

Clever, War, Responsibility

Winston Churchill (1986). “The Hinge of Fate”, p.499, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and words; they are afraid of the workings of the human mind.

Winston Churchill

Effort, Mind, Bars

Winston Churchill (1951). “War speeches”

Judged by every standard which history has applied to Governments, the Soviet Government of Russia is one of the worst tyrannies that has ever existed in the world. It accords no political rights. It rules by terror. It punishes political opinions. It suppresses free speech. It tolerates no newspapers but its own. It persecutes Christianity with a zeal and a cunning never equalled since the times of the Roman Emperors. It is engaged at this moment in trampling down the peoples of Georgia and executing their leaders by hundreds.

Winston Churchill

Russia, Rights, Political Opinions

Winston Churchill's speech to the Scottish Unionist Association in Edinburgh, Scotland (September 25, 1924), later published in "Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963" edited by Robert Rhodes James (Volume 4, p. 3472), 1974.

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.

Winston Churchill

Drinking, Beer, Funny Sarcastic

Uttered during a lunch with the Arab leader, Ibn Saud

Never trust a man who has not a single redeeming vice.

Winston Churchill

Men, Vices, Human Nature

Winston Churchill (2001). “The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill”, Michael O'Mara Books

An aphorism is not an aphorism unless you know what it means.

Winston Churchill

Mean, Aphorism, Knows

No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it.

Winston Churchill

Success, War, Congratulations

Letter to Lord Wavell, 26 Nov. 1940, in Second World War (1949) vol. 2, ch. 27

In defeat, unbeatable; in victor, unbearable

Winston Churchill

Military, Unbearable, Defeat

When you have got a thing where you want, it is a good thing to leave it where it is.

Winston Churchill

Want, Good Things

Winston Churchill (1986). “Their Finest Hour”, p.368, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas... I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes... It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gases: gases can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected.

Winston Churchill

Use, Poison Gas, Tribes

Winston Churchill's statement as President of the Air Council in War Office Departmental Minute (the original document is in the collection of Churchill Papers 16/16 at the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge), May 12, 1919.

No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle.

Winston Churchill

Horse, Animal, Cowboy

Opening amenities are often opening inanities.

Winston Churchill

Opening, Amenities, Speakers

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

War, Thinking, Helping

Winston Churchill's letter to a friend, 1916.

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

Winston Churchill

Class, Bored, Three

Winston S. Churchill (2013). “Churchill By Himself”, p.1066, RosettaBooks

That long (Canadian) frontier from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, guarded only by neighbourly respect and honourable obligations, as an example to every country and a pattern for the future of the world.

Winston Churchill

Country, Ocean, Long

There comes into the life of every man a task for which he and he alone is uniquely suited. What a shame if that moment finds him either unwilling or unprepared for that which would become his finest hour.

Winston Churchill

Men, Tasks, Shame

You never can tell whether bad luck may not after all turn out to be good luck.

Winston Churchill

Good Luck, Adversity, May

Winston Churchill (2010). “My Early Life: 1874-1904”, p.113, Simon and Schuster

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

Winston Churchill

Sea, Relief, Causes

The Malakand Field Force ch. 3 (1898)

Listing your personal milestones is like storing a pocketful of sunshine for a rainy day. Sometimes our best is simply not enough.... We have to do what is required.

Winston Churchill

Sunshine, Rainy Day, Sometimes

Land monopoly is not only monopoly, but it is by far the greatest of monopolies; it is a perpetual monopoly, and it is the mother of all other forms of monopoly.

Winston Churchill

Mother, Land, Form

Sir Winston Churchill, Winston Churchill (1970). “The people's rights”, Jonathan Cape

I hate nobody except Hitler--and that is professional.

Winston Churchill

Hate, I Hate

Winston Churchill (2001). “The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill”, Michael O'Mara Books

Nature has not intended mankind to work from eight in the morning until midnight without that refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it only lasts twenty minutes, is sufficient to renew all the vital forces.

Winston Churchill

Morning, Blessed, Eight

Winston Churchill (1986). “The Gathering Storm”, p.375, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I drink a great deal. I sleep a little, and I smoke cigar after cigar. That is why I am in two-hundred-percent form.

Winston Churchill

Sleep, Two, Smoking

Young people at universities study to achieve knowledge and not to learn a trade. We must all learn how to support ourselves, but we must also learn how to live. We need a lot of engineers in the modern world, but we do not want a world of modern engineers.

Winston Churchill

Learning, People, Support

Winston Churchill (1950). “Europe Unite: Speeches 1947 and 1948”, London, Cassell