Winston Churchill

If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.

Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.

There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.

Well, dinner would have been splendid!

He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

You are braver than you believe. Stronger than you seem. And smarter than you think.

Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all.

Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.

Truth is neither alive nor dead; it just aggravates itself all the time.

The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance; the last half consists of the chance without the capacity.

What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.

A sage is the instructor of a hundred ages.

It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal wounds that have not healed.

Man gives every reason for his conduct save one, every excuse for his crimes save one, every plea for his safety save one; and that one is his cowardice.

It is permissible even for a dying hero to think before he dies how men will speak of him hereafter. His fame lasts perhaps two thousand years. And what are two thousand years?… What, indeed, if you look from a mountain top down the long wastes of the ages? The very stone one kicks with one’s boot will outlast Shakespeare.

Different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

The country life is to be preferred, for there we see the works of God; but in cities little else but the works of men. And the one makes a better subject for contemplation than the other.

Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Let them be your only diet, drink, and botanical medicines.

What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth. No smallest atom of our moral, mental, or physical structure can stand still a year. It grows – it must grow; nothing can prevent it.