Quotes by Winston Churchill

Show more quotes.

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.
--Winston Churchill

The question which we must ask ourselves is not whether we like or do not like what is going on, but what we are going to do about it.
--Winston Churchill

Statesmen are not called upon to settle the easy questions. These often settle themselves. It is when the balance quivers and the proportions are veiled in mist that the opportunities for world-saving decisions present themselves.
--Winston Churchill

It is with a sense of awe that they [the Germans] turned upon Russia the most grisly of all weapons. They transported Lenin in a sealed truck like a plague bacteria from Switzerland into Russia.
--Winston Churchill

In those days he was wiser than he is now -- he used to frequently take my advice.
--Winston Churchill

"All men are created equal," says the American Declaration of Independence. "All men shall be kept equal," say the Socialists.
--Winston Churchill

Our difficulties come from the mood of unwarrantable self-abasement into which we have been cast by a powerful section of our own intellectuals.
--Winston Churchill

When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.
--Winston Churchill

[Clement] Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason.
--Winston Churchill

There are a lot of lies going around... and half of them are true.
--Winston Churchill

The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions.
--Winston Churchill

Governments who have siezed upon power by violence and by usurpation have often resorted to terrorism in their desperate efforts to keep what they have stolen.
--Winston Churchill

Everyone can recognize history when it happens. Everyone can recognize history after it has happened; but it is only the wise man who knows at the moment what is vital and permanent, what is lasting and memorable.
--Winston Churchill

The story of the human race is war. Except for brief and precarious interludes there has never been peace in the world.
--Winston Churchill

Justice cannot be a hit-or-miss system. We cannot be content with an arrangement where our system of international laws applies only to those who are willing to keep them.
--Winston Churchill

I am astonished to see how people are afraid to defend the capitalist system. The politicians are afraid, the newspapers are afraid... As a matter of fact the capitalist system is capable of sustained and searching defense.
--Winston Churchill

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.'
--Winston Churchill

No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong.
--Winston Churchill

Look forward, do not look backward. Gather afresh in heart and spirit all the energies of your being, bend anew together for a supreme effort.
--Winston Churchill

Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.
--Winston Churchill

This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.
--Winston Churchill

The honourable gentleman is never fortuitous in the coincidence of his facts with truth.
--Winston Churchill

Tyranny is our foe, whatever trappings or disguise it wears, whatever language it speaks, be it external or internal, we must forever be on our guard, ever mobilized, ever vigilant, always ready to spring at its throat.
--Winston Churchill

It is sheer laziness not compressing thought into a reasonable space.
--Winston Churchill

Moral force is unhappily no substitute for armed force, but it is a very great reinforcement.
--Winston Churchill