Quotes by Winston Churchill

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.

If we open a quarrel between the past and the present we shall find we have lost the future.

There are few virtues which the Poles do not possess and there are few errors they have ever avoided.

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.

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.

We shall not flag or fail. We shall fight in France we shall fight on the seas and oceans we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air 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.

War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.

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

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.

We must have a better word than prefabricated why not ready-made?

I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life most of which never happened.

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.

Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.

We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

The British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst.

We do not covet anything from any nation except their respect.

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.

In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.