Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill was a British politician, army officer, and writer. He was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, when he led Britain to victory in Europe in the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Ideologically an economic liberal and British imperialist, he represented five constituencies during his career as Member of Parliament (MP). Widely considered one of the 20th century’s most significant figures, Churchill remains popular in the UK and Western world where he is seen as a victorious wartime leader who played an important role in defending liberal democracy from the spread of fascism.
Some of the best quotes from Winston Churchill are listed below.
- “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” – Winston Churchill
- “A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt; long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.” – Winston Churchill
- “A joke is a very serious thing.” – Winston Churchill
- “A love for tradition has never weakened a nation. Indeed, it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril.” – Winston Churchill
- “A man does what he must-in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles, and dangers, and pressures; and that is the basis of all human morality.” – Winston Churchill
- “A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.” – Winston Churchill
- “A politician needs 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.” – Winston Churchill
- “A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.” – Winston Churchill
- “A small lie needs a bodyguard of bigger lies to protect it.” – Winston Churchill
- “All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word-freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.” – Winston Churchill
- “Although prepared for martyrdom, I prefer that it be postponed.” – Winston Churchill
- “Always remember that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.” – Winston Churchill
- “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” – Winston Churchill
- “And wherever men are fighting against barbarism, tyranny, and massacre, for freedom, law, and honour, let them remember that the fame of their deeds, even though they themselves are exterminated, may perhaps be celebrated as long as the world rolls round.” – Winston Churchill
- “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” – Winston Churchill
- “Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.” – Winston Churchill
- “Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself, believe.” – Winston Churchill
- “Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.” – Winston Churchill
- “Continuous effort-not strength or intelligence-is the key to unlocking our potential.” – Winston Churchill
- “Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.” – Winston Churchill
- “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary.” – Winston Churchill
- “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” – Winston Churchill
- “Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.” – Winston Churchill
- “Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.” – Winston Churchill
- “Don’t interrupt me while I’m interrupting.” – Winston Churchill
- “Doubts can be swept away only by deeds.” – Winston Churchill
- “Eating words has never given me indigestion.” – Winston Churchill
- “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.” – Winston Churchill
- “Everyone is in favor of free speech.” – Winston Churchill
- “Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.” – Winston Churchill
- “For myself, I am an optimist. It does not seem to be much use to be anything else.” – Winston Churchill
- “Good and great are seldom in the same man.” – Winston Churchill
- “He has all the virtues I dislike, and none of the vices I admire.” – Winston Churchill
- “He’s a humble man with much to be humble about.” – Winston Churchill
- “Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.” – Winston Churchill
- “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” – Winston Churchill
- “History, with its flickering lamp, stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days.” – Winston Churchill
- “How fortunate it was for the world that when these great trials came upon it, there was a generation that terror could not conquer and brutal violence could not enslave.” – Winston Churchill
- “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” – Winston Churchill
- “Humanity will not be cast down. We are going on, swinging bravely forward along the grand high road, and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the sun.” – Winston Churchill
- “I am easily satisfied with the very best.” – Winston Churchill
- “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” – Winston Churchill
- “I cannot pretend to be impartial about the colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.” – Winston Churchill
- “I don’t like mixing up moralities with mathematics.” – Winston Churchill
- “I hate nobody except Hitler-and that is professional.” – Winston Churchill
- “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” – Winston Churchill
- “I never worry about action, but only about inaction.” – Winston Churchill
- “I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.” – Winston Churchill
- “I pass with relief from the tossing sea of cause and theory to the firm ground of result and fact.” – Winston Churchill
- “I’m bored with it all.” – Winston Churchill
- “If Hitler invaded hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.” – Winston Churchill
- “If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.” – Winston Churchill
- “If you are going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill
- “If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time-a tremendous whack.” – Winston Churchill
- “If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.” – Winston Churchill
- “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.” – Winston Churchill
- “It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.” – Winston Churchill
- “It is always more easy to discover and proclaim general principles than to apply them.” – Winston Churchill
- “It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.” – Winston Churchill
- “It is the people who control the government, not the government the people.” – Winston Churchill
- “It’s no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.” – Winston Churchill
- “It’s not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something.” – Winston Churchill
- “Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.” – Winston Churchill
- “Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut.” – Winston Churchill
- “Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe.” – Winston Churchill
- “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” – Winston Churchill
- “My conclusion on freewill and predestination-they are identical.” – Winston Churchill
- “My education was interrupted only by my schooling.” – Winston Churchill
- “My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.” – Winston Churchill
- “My tastes are simple-I am easily satisfied with the best.” – Winston Churchill
- “My wife and I tried to eat breakfast together, but we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked.” – Winston Churchill
- “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 honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” – Winston Churchill
- “Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.” – Winston Churchill
- “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” – Winston Churchill
- “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.” – Winston Churchill
- “Never, never, never give in!” – Winston Churchill
- “No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle.” – Winston Churchill
- “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise.” – Winston Churchill
- “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” – Winston Churchill
- “Now that we have run out of money, we have to think.” – Winston Churchill
- “Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” – Winston Churchill
- “Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind.” – Winston Churchill
- “Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge.” – Winston Churchill
- “Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.” – Winston Churchill
- “Personally, I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.” – Winston Churchill
- “Responsibility is the price of greatness.” – Winston Churchill
- “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” – Winston Churchill
- “Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.” – Winston Churchill
- “Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is-the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.” – Winston Churchill
- “Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes you must do what is required.” – Winston Churchill
- “Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.” – Winston Churchill
- “Success always demands a greater effort.” – Winston Churchill
- “Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
- “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill
- “Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.” – Winston Churchill
- “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” – Winston Churchill
- “The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.” – Winston Churchill
- “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close-in its place we are entering a period of consequences.” – Winston Churchill
- “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” – Winston Churchill
- “The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.” – Winston Churchill
- “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent vice of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” – Winston Churchill
- “The malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous.” – Winston Churchill
- “The most important thing about education is appetite.” – Winston Churchill
- “The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.” – Winston Churchill
- “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.” – Winston Churchill
- “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” – Winston Churchill
- “The way to achieve happiness is to try for perfection that is impossible to achieve, and spend the rest of your life trying to achieve it.” – Winston Churchill
- “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.” – Winston Churchill
- “There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.” – Winston Churchill
- “There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues-the most dominating virtues of humans-are created, strengthened, and maintained.” – Winston Churchill
- “There is no such thing as a good tax.” – Winston Churchill
- “There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.” – Winston Churchill
- “There is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.” – Winston Churchill
- “There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at with no result.” – Winston Churchill
- “There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.” – Winston Churchill
- “There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.” – Winston Churchill
- “They say that nobody is perfect. Then, they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they’d make up their minds.” – Winston Churchill
- “This is the type of warrant pedantry with which I will not put up with.” – Winston Churchill
- “This paper, by its very length, defends itself from ever being read.” – Winston Churchill
- “To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.” – Winston Churchill
- “To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents.” – Winston Churchill
- “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” – Winston Churchill
- “War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.” – Winston Churchill
- “We are all worms, but I do believe that I am a glow worm.” – Winston Churchill
- “We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.” – Winston Churchill
- “We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls.” – Winston Churchill
- “We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.” – Winston Churchill
- “We have not journeyed all this way because we are made of sugar candy.” – Winston Churchill
- “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill
- “We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us.” – Winston Churchill
- “We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.” – Winston Churchill
- “What is the use of living, if it is not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?” – Winston Churchill
- “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.” – Winston Churchill
- “When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.” – Winston Churchill
- “When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.” – Winston Churchill
- “When you get a thing the way you want it, leave it alone.” – Winston Churchill
- “When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.” – Winston Churchill
- “Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl-no superior alternative has yet been found.” – Winston Churchill
- “Without courage, all other virtues lose their meaning.” – Winston Churchill
- “Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.” – Winston Churchill
- “Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.” – Winston Churchill
- “You ask, ‘What is our aim?’ I can answer in one word. It is victory-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
- “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.” – Winston Churchill
- “You create your own universe as you go along.” – Winston Churchill
- “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” – Winston Churchill
- “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.” – Winston Churchill
- “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war.” – Winston Churchill
- “You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous, and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was meant to be wooed and won by youth.” – Winston Churchill
- “You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.” – Winston Churchill
- “You’ll never find a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.” – Winston Churchill
