Winston Churchill

There must be what Mr. Gladstone many years ago called a blessed act of oblivion. We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past. We must look to the future. We cannot afford to drag forward across the years that are to come the hatreds and revenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past.

Civilisation will not last, freedom will not survive, peace will not be kept, unless a very large majority of mankind unite together to defend them and show themselves possessed of a constabulary power before which barbaric and atavistic forces will stand in awe.

Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed.

I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.

Nothing is so exhilarating in life as to be shot at with no result.

We must beware of trying to build a society in which nobody counts for anything except a politician or an official, a society where enterprise gains no reward and thrift no privileges.

The course of everything goes to teach us faith.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

I want to be free; to escape. I use my pen as oars; the paper as my boat. I fill these pages to keep me afloat. I ride the waves of turmoil, so I can paddle away to calmer seas.

Justice delayed is justice denied.

The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.

Courage is exhilarating.

We are apt to love praise, but not deserve it. But if we would deserve it, we must love virtue more than that.

Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.

Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle.

Preaching is the expression of moral sentiments applied to the duties of life.

Studies serve for delight, for ornaments, and for ability.

We live thick and are in each other’s way, and stumble over one another, and I think we thus lose some respect for one another.

I see the whole concept of Generation X implies that everyone has lost hope.

Well, dearie, men have to do some awfully mean things to keep up their respectability. But you can’t blame them for that, can you?

Think ahead. Don’t let day-to-day operations drive out planning.