Winston Churchill

I was very glad that Mr. Attlee described my speeches in the war as expressing the will not only of Parliament but of the whole nation. Their will was resolute and remorseless and, as it proved, unconquerable. It fell to me to express it, and if I found the right words you must remember that I have always earned my living by my pen and by my tongue. It was a nation and race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.

No comment is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again.

Twenty to twenty-five! These are the years! Dont be content with things as they are. Dont take No for an answer. Never submit to failure. Do not be fobbed off with mere personal success or acceptance. 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 made to be wooed and won by youth. She has lived and thrived only by repeated subjugations.

The substance of the eminent Socialist gentlemen’s speech is that making a profit is a sin. It is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss!

Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.

Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.

Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large defect in your race – the individual’s distrust of his neighbor, and his desire, for safety’s or comfort’s sake, to stand well in his neighbor’s eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish, and always oppress you, affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where the majority of the people were in their secret hearts loyal to any of these institutions.

They say that history repeats itself, so if you don’t learn from the past you will make the same mistakes. So I have become an archaeologist of my own history. Digging up what has long since been buried, exhuming those forgotten fragments. Trying to distinguish what is real from folklore, trying to gain understanding, rather than relying on myths.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — `Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

I found you essay to be good and original. However, the part that was original was not good and the part that was good was not original.

For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.

The way you think, the way you behave, the way you eat, can influence your life by 30 to 50 years.

The only living works are those which have drained much of the author’s own life into them.

Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff.

Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact.

Appearances matter – and remember to smile.

Virtue knows that it is impossible to get on without compromise, and tunes herself, as it were, a trifle sharp to allow for an inevitable fall in playing.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.