Winston S. Churchill Quotes

601 Quotes for Perseverance, Success, and Thought-Provoking Wisdom

Attributed to Winston Churchill in The Prodigal Project : Book I : Genesis (2003) by Ken Abraham and Daniel Hart, p. 224 and other places, though no source attribution is given. It actually derives from an advertising campaign for Budweiser beer in the late 1930s.
Misattributed
Variant: Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Source: http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/03/success-final/

Christopher Soames, speech at the Reform Club (28 April 1981), reported in Martin S. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill. Volume Eight: Never Despair: 1945–1965. p. 304
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Variant: I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
Context: [Christopher Soames, Churchill's future son-in-law, remembered] Churchill showing him around Chartwell Farm [around 1946]. When they came to the piggery Churchill scratched one of the pigs and said: I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

The World Crisis, 1916-1918 Part I : Chapter V (Jutland: The Preliminaries), Churchill, Butterworth (1927), pp. 112.
Early career years (1898–1929)

A letter to a friend (1916).
Early career years (1898–1929)

Broadcast (14 July 1940), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 665
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Context: This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this Island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warrior; but let all strive without failing in faith or in duty, and the dark curse of Hitler will be lifted from our age.

Discussion of Operation Overlord with Stalin at the Teheran Conference (November 30, 1943); in The Second World War, Volume V : Closing the Ring (1952), Chapter 21 (Teheran: The Crux), p. 338.
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Variant: In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

As quoted in the United States of America Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 105th Congress Second Session, Government Printing Office, Vol. 144, Part 4, p. 5738 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nEI6WcjH8ykC&pg=PA5738
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Speech in the House of Commons, June 10, 1941 "Defence of Crete" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1941/jun/10/defence-of-crete#column_152, in The Churchill War Papers : 1941 (1993), Churchill/Gilbert, Norton, p. 785
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Context: I must point out … that the British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst, and like to be told that they are very likely to get much worse in the future and must prepare themselves for further reverses.

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1931/jan/26/india-1#column_702 in the House of Commons (26 January 1931)
The 1930s

The People's Rights [1909] (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), pp. 139-140
Early career years (1898–1929)

Variant: Never, never, never give up.

Often attributed to Churchill, this thought was originally expressed by the French author Victor Hugo in Villemain (1845), as follows: You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats. Do not bother yourself about it; disdain. Keep your mind serene as you keep your life clear.
Villemain is a brief segment taken from Hugo's Choses Vues (Things Seen), a running journal Hugo kept of events he witnessed. The original French versions of these journals were published after Hugo's death.
Misattributed

Speech in the House of Commons, November 12, 1936 "Debate on the Address" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1936/nov/12/debate-on-the-address#column_1117
Cited in Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth
This speech is also commonly known by the name "The Locust Years" http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/Locusts.html.
The 1930s

In the House of Commons, February 28, 1906 speech South African native races http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1906/feb/28/south-african-native-races#S4V0152P0_19060228_HOC_307
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Variant: Where there is great power there is great responsibility
Context: I submit respectfully to the House as a general principle that our responsibility in this matter is directly proportionate to our power. Where there is great power there is great responsibility, where there is less power there is less responsibility, and where there is no power there can, I think, be no responsibility.

Minute (1 June 1940) in response to the Foreign Office's suggestion that preparations should be made for the evacuation of the Royal Family and the British Government to "some part of the Overseas Empire", quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 449
The Second World War (1939–1945)

This appears to be a variation of a quote often attributed to Caskie Stinnett in 1960, "A diplomat...is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip" https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kcycAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA90&dq=%22A+diplomat+is+a+person+who+can+tell+you+to+go+to+hell+in+such+a+way+that+you+actually+look+forward+to+the+trip.%22 but which appears to have been in common use in the 1950s and is first recorded in the Seattle Daily Times in 1953 as "Diplomat—one who can tell you to go to hades and make you look forward to the trip". http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/a_diplomat_is_a_person_who_can_tell_you_to_go_to_hell_so_that_you_look_forw/
Misattributed
Variant: Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions

The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War (1898), Chapter X.
Early career years (1898–1929)
Variant: There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at with no result.

Speech given at Harrow School, Harrow, England, October 29, 1941. Quoted in Churchill by Himself (2008), ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, 2008, p. 23
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Source: Never Give In!: The Best of Winston Churchill's Speeches
Context: Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

In Reader's Digest (December 1954).
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Variant: An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.

Speech in the House of Commons, after taking office as Prime Minister (13 May 1940) This has often been misquoted in the form: "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears ..."
The Official Report, House of Commons (5th Series), 13 May 1940, vol. 360, c. 1502. Audio records of the speech do spare out the "It is" before the in the beginning of the "Victory"-Part.
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Context: You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. 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.
Context: I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.' We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. 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.

speech at Lord Mayor’s Luncheon, Mansion House, London, November 10, 1942 : ( partial text http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/EndoBegn.html)
Referring to the British victory over the German Afrika Korps at the Second Battle of El Alamein in Egypt.
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Variant: This is not the end, this is not even the beginning of the end, this is just perhaps the end of the beginning.
Source: Their Finest Hour

On Stanley Baldwin, as cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), Ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 322 ISBN 1586486381
Also quoted by Kay Halle in Irrepressible Churchill: A Treasury of Winston Churchill's Wit http://books.google.com/books?id=b0MTAQAAIAAJ&q=%22Occasionally+he+stumbled+over+the+truth+but+hastily+picked+himself+up+and+hurried+on+as+if+nothing+had+happened%22&pg=PA133#v=onepage (1966).
The 1930s
Variant: Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.

Speech in the House of Commons, February 27, 1945 "Crimea Conference" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1945/feb/27/crimea-conference#column_1294; in The Second World War, Volume VI: Triumph and Tragedy (1954), Chapter XXIII – Yalta: Finale.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

BBC broadcast (“The Russian Enigma”), London, October 1, 1939 ( partial text http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/RusnEnig.html, transcript of the "First Month of War" speech https://ww2memories.wordpress.com/2011/09/24/churchills-ww2-speech-to-the-nation-october-1939/).
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Context: I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.

In "Painting as a Pastime", first published in the Strand Magazine in two parts (December 1921/January 1922), cited in Churchill by Himself (2008), ed. Langworth, PublicAffairs, p. 456 ISBN 1586486381
Early career years (1898–1929)

Allegedly said regarding a Greek victory over Italian invaders, but without a documented source.
Disputed

“Why I am a Free Trader,” Chapter I in T.W. Stead’s journal Coming Men on Coming Questions (April 13, 1905), bottom p. 9.
Early career years (1898–1929)

Variant: I am easily satisfied with the very best.

Attribution debunked in Langworth's Churchill by Himself. The earliest close match located by the Quote Investigator is from the 1953 book How to Say a Few Words by David Guy Powers.
Misattributed
Variant: Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.
Source: 1953, How to Say a Few Words by David Guy Powers, Quote p. 109, Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York. Referenced by Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/06/28/success

As cited in The Forbes Book of Business Quotations (2007), Ed. Goodwin, Black Dog Publishing, p. 168, ISBN 1579127215
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Attribution debunked in Langworth's Churchill by Himself. First known appearance is in a 1992 usenet post https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=rec.arts.comics.misc/EMj3ZowKq1U/E0dsEBwdZEgJ.
Misattributed
Source: Google books link https://books.google.com/books?id=vbsU21fEhLAC&q=average+voter#v=snippet&q=average%20voter&f=false

Variant: A kite flies against the wind, not with it.

Lord Mayor’s Banquet, Guildhall, London (9 November 1954) The Unwritten Alliance, page 195, Columbia University, NY (1966),page 195,
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Variant: A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

First mentioned as "Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking and using our potential." according to Quote Investigator in the 1981 book The Reflecting Pond: Meditations for Self-Discovery by Liane Cordes, Quote Page 89, Hazelden Publishing, Center City, Minnesota. For further research on this quote see: Quote Investigator (August 31, 2013): Continuous Effort — Not Strength or Intelligence — Is the Key to Unlocking and Using Our Potential Winston Churchill? Liane Cordes? Liane Cardes? Apocryphal? Archived http://archive.is/E0M12 on June 2, 2020.
Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/08/21/effort/ from the original

Source: Wealth, War, and Wisdom

Winston Churchill (June 23, 1925), His complete speeches, 1897–1963, edited by Robert Rhodes James, Chelsea House ed., vol. 4 (1922–1928), p. 3706. During a debate with Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden.
Often misquoted as: To improve is to change, to be perfect is to change often.
Early career years (1898–1929)

As quoted by Violet Bonham-Carter in Winston Churchill as I Knew Him (1965), according to The Yale Book of Quotations (2006), Fred R. Shapiro, Yale University Press, p. 155 ISBN 0300107986
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Source: Never Give In!: The Best of Winston Churchill's Speeches

Quoted in Words of Wisdom: Winston Churchill, Students’ Academy, Lulu Press (2014), Section Three : ISBN 1312396598
Post-war years (1945–1955)

The War by Land and Sea, Part IV, The London Magazine, January 1917.
Reproduced in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol I, Churchill at War, Centenary Edition (1976), Library of Imperial History, p. 147-8.
Early career years (1898–1929)
Context: The German hope is that if the frontiers can be unshakeably maintained for another year, a peace can be obtained which will relieve Germany from the consequences of the hideous catastrophe in which she has plunged the world, and leave her free to scheme and prepare a decisive stroke in another generation. Unless Germany is beaten in a manner which leaves no room for doubt or dispute, unless she is convinced by the terrible logic of events that the glory of her people can never be achieved by violent means, unless her war-making capacity after the war is sensibly diminished, a renewal of the conflict, after an uneasy and malevolent truce, seems unavoidable.

Speech at Kinnaird Hall, Dundee, Scotland ("Unemployment"), October 10, 1908, in Liberalism and the Social Problem (1909), Churchill, Echo Library (2007), p. 87
Early career years (1898–1929)
Context: What is the use of living, if it be 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? How else can we put ourselves in harmonious relation with the great verities and consolations of the infinite and the eternal? And I avow my faith that we are marching towards better days. 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.

Speech at Zurich University (September 19, 1946) ( partial text http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/astonish.html) ( http://www.peshawar.ch/varia/winston.htm).
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Context: The salvation of the common people of every race and of every land from war or servitude must be established on solid foundations and must be guarded by the readiness of all men and women to die rather than submit to tyranny.

Vision of the Future Through Eyes of Science, News of the World, 31 October 1937
Reproduced in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol IV, Churchill at Large, Centenary Edition (1976), Library of Imperial History, p. 414.
The 1930s
Context: Three hundred years ago it would have seemed absurd to say that this black mineral, this sea-coal, which could be used as a substitute for wood to burn in one's grate, could be applied to revolutionize human affairs. Today we know that there is another source of energy a million times greater. We have not yet learned how to harness it or apply it, but it is there. Occasionally in complicated processes in the laboratory a scientist observes transmutations, re-arrangements in the core of the atom, which is known as the nucleus, which generate power at a rate hundreds of thousands of times greater than is produced when coal is burned and when, as the scientists put it, a carbon atom satisfied its affinity for an oxygen molecule. It can scarcely be doubted that a way to induce and control these effects can be found. The new fire is laid, but the particular kind of match is missing.

Speech in the House of Commons, July 8, 1920 "Amritsar" http://lachlan.bluehaze.com.au/churchill/am-text.htm ; at the time, Churchill was serving as Secretary of State for War under Prime Minister David Lloyd George
Early career years (1898–1929)
Context: However we may dwell upon the difficulties of General Dyer during the Amritsar riots, upon the anxious and critical situation in the Punjab, upon the danger to Europeans throughout that province, … one tremendous fact stands out – I mean the slaughter of nearly 400 persons and the wounding of probably three to four times as many, at the Jallian Wallah Bagh on 13th April. That is an episode which appears to me to be without precedent or parallel in the modern history of the British Empire. … It is an extraordinary event, a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation.

On Soviet communism and the Cold War, in a speech at Fulton, Missouri on March 5, 1946 ( complete text http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/Fulton.html). Churchill did not coin the phrase "iron curtain", however; the 1920 book Through Bolshevik Russia by English suffragette Ethel Snowden contained the line "We were behind the ‘iron curtain’ at last!" (This fact is mentioned in the article 'Anonymous was a Woman' http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/2011_01/anon4651.html, Yale Alumni Magazine Jan/Feb 2011).
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Context: A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory…. From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.

The Second World War, Volume I : The Gathering Storm (1948) Chapter 17 (The Tragedy of Munich), p .287 http://books.google.de/books?id=HzlT3t05OHoC&pg=PA287&dq=churchill+the+gathering+storm+have+been+averted+by+patience+and+persisting+good+will!&hl=de&sa=X&ei=1355T-39C4jHsgb0t-mWBA&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Post-war years (1945–1955)
Context: Those who are prone, by temperament and character, to seek sharp and clear-cut solutions of difficult and obscure problems, who are ready to fight whenever some challenge comes from a foreign power, have not always been right. On the other hand, those whose inclination is to bow their heads, to seek patiently and faithfully for peaceful compromise, are not always wrong. On the contrary, in the majority of instances they may be right, not only morally, but from a practical standpoint. How many wars have been averted by patience and persisting good will! Religion and virtue alike lend their sanctions to meekness and humility, not only between men but between nations. How many wars have been precipitated by firebrands! How many misunderstandings which led to wars could have been removed by temporizing! How often have countries fought cruel wars and then after a few years found themselves not only friends but allies!

G.D. Birla's account of his conversation with Churchill in a letter to Gandhi (September 1935), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 618
The 1930s
Context: Mr. Gandhi has gone very high in my esteem since he stood up for the untouchables … Well, you have the opportunity now. I do not like the [Indian Home Rule] Bill but it is now on the Statute Book. I am not going to bother any more, but do not give us a chance to say we anticipated a breakdown... So make it a success.... My test of improvement in the lot of the masses, morally as well as materially. I do not care whether you are more or less loyal to Great Britain … Tell Mr. Gandhi to use the powers that are offered and make the thing a success.

Speech in the House of Commons, July 8, 1920 "Amritsar" http://lachlan.bluehaze.com.au/churchill/am-text.htm
Early career years (1898–1929)
Context: Let me marshal the facts. The crowd was unarmed, except with bludgeons. It was not attacking anybody or anything. It was holding a seditious meeting. When fire had been opened upon it to disperse it, it tried to run away. Pinned up in a narrow place considerably smaller than Trafalgar Square, with hardly any exits, and packed together so that one bullet would drive through three or four bodies, the people ran madly this way and the other. When the fire was directed upon the centre, they ran to the sides. The fire was then directed to the sides. Many threw themselves down on the ground, and the fire was then directed on the ground. This was continued for 8 or 10 minutes... [i]f the road had not been so narrow, the machine guns and the armoured cars would have joined in. Finally, when the ammunition had reached the point that only enough remained to allow for the safe return of the troops, and after 379 persons … had been killed, and when most certainly 1,200 or more had been wounded, the troops, at whom not even a stone had been thrown, swung round and marched away. … We have to make it absolutely clear … that this is not the British way of doing business. … Our reign, in India or anywhere else, has never stood on the basis of physical force alone, and it would be fatal to the British Empire if we were to try to base ourselves only upon it.

Winston Churchill, in "The Defence of Freedom and Peace (The Lights are Going Out)", radio broadcast to the United States and to London (16 October 1938).
The 1930s
Context: People say we ought not to allow ourselves to be drawn into a theoretical antagonism between Nazidom and democracy; but the antagonism is here now. It is this very conflict of spiritual and moral ideas which gives the free countries a great part of their strength. You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. On all sides they are guarded by masses of armed men, cannons, aeroplanes, fortifications, and the like — they boast and vaunt themselves before the world, yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts; words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home — all the more powerful because forbidden — terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and words; they are afraid of the workings of the human mind. Cannons, airplanes, they can manufacture in large quantities; but how are they to quell the natural promptings of human nature, which after all these centuries of trial and progress has inherited a whole armoury of potent and indestructible knowledge?

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1910/jul/20/class-iii#column_1354 in the House of Commons (20 July 1910)
Early career years (1898–1929)
Context: The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country. A calm and dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the State, and even of convicted criminals against the State, a constant heart-searching by all charged with the duty of punishment, a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in the world of industry all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment, tireless efforts towards the discovery of curative and regenerating processes, and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man—these are the symbols which in the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it.

Speech to a joint session of the United States Congress, Washington, D.C. (26 December 1941) http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/speeches-of-winston-churchill/1941-1945-war-leader/288-us-congress-1941.
The Second World War (1939–1945)
Context: When we consider the resources of the United States and the British Empire compared to those of Japan, when we remember those of China, which has so long and valiantly withstood invasion and when also we observe the Russian menace which hangs over Japan, it becomes still more difficult to reconcile Japanese action with prudence or even with sanity. What kind of a people do they think we are? Is it possible they do not realise that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?
Members of the Senate and members of the House of Representatives, I turn for one moment more from the turmoil and convulsions of the present to the broader basis of the future. Here we are together facing a group of mighty foes who seek our ruin; here we are together defending all that to free men is dear. Twice in a single generation the catastrophe of world war has fallen upon us; twice in our lifetime has the long arm of fate reached across the ocean to bring the United States into the forefront of the battle. If we had kept together after the last War, if we had taken common measures for our safety, this renewal of the curse need never have fallen upon us.
Do we not owe it to ourselves, to our children, to mankind tormented, to make sure that these catastrophes shall not engulf us for the third time?