Winston Churchill

I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colors. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.

No crime is so great as daring to excel.

The late M. Venizelos observed that in all her wars Englandhe should have said Britain, of coursealways wins one battlethe last.

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.

I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

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

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

The giving of love is an education in itself.

Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his solitude.

All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first.

Sincerity is the luxury allowed, like diadems and authority, only to the highest rank. Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.

Should not every apartment in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about the rafters?

No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself.

And certainly, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.

Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are.

We do not count a man’s years until he has nothing else to count.

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.

There is also this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it.

Syllables govern the world.

I have not a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming vices.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.