Winston S. Churchill Quotes: 601 Quotes for Perseverance, Success, and Thought-Provoking Wisdom

“Like other systems in decay, the Roman Empire continued to function for several generations after its vitality was sapped. For nearly a hundred years our Island was one of the scenes of conflict between a dying civilisation and lusty, famishing barbarism.”

Winston S. Churchill book A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1956–58)

“India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the equator.”

Winston S. Churchill

Speech at Royal Albert Hall, London (18 March 1931).
The 1930s

“I wonder whether any other generation has seen such astounding revolutions of data and values as those through which we have lived. Scarcely anything material or established which I was brought up to believe was permanent and vital, has lasted. Everything I was sure or taught to be sure was impossible, has happened.”

Winston S. Churchill

Source: My Early Life: A Roving Commission (1930), Chapter 5 (The Fourth Hussars).

“We have surmounted all the perils and endured all the agonies of the past. We shall provide against and thus prevail over the dangers and problems of the future, withhold no sacrifice, grudge no toil, seek no sordid gain, fear no foe. All will be well. We have, I believe, within us the life-strength and guiding light by which the tormented world around us may find the harbour of safety, after a storm-beaten voyage.”

Winston S. Churchill

At Chateau Laurier, Ottawa, Canada, November 9, 1954 ; as cited at The Churchill Centre http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/speeches/quotations/famous-quotations-and-stories.
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Life , World , Fear , Problem

“The Russian Armies and all the peoples of the Russian Republic have rallied to the defence of their hearths and homes. … The aggressor is surprised, startled, staggered. For the first time in his experience mass murder has become unprofitable. He retaliates by the most frightful cruelties. As his armies advance, whole districts are being exterminated. Scores of thousands—literally scores of thousands—of executions in cold blood are being perpetrated by the German police-troops upon the Russian patriots who defend their native soil. Since the Mongol invasions of Europe in the sixteenth century, there has never been methodical, merciless butchery on such a scale, or approaching such a scale. And this is but the beginning. Famine and pestilence have yet to follow in the bloody ruts of Hitler's tanks. We are in the presence of a crime without a name.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Broadcast (24 August 1941), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 1173
The Second World War (1939–1945)

People , Home , Time

“Everyone can see how communism rots the soul of a nation. How it makes it abject in peace and proves it abominable in war.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Part of a speech played on the documentary Timewatch - Russia: A Century of Suspicion.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

War , Peace , Soul , Communication

“Gentlemen, We Have Run Out Of Money; Now We Have to Think”

Winston S. Churchill

This quote, or a minor variation of it ("Gentlemen, we have run out of money. It is time to start thinking.") is also attributed to (Sir) Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937), the famed New Zealand chemist and physicist. http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2011/November/Pages/%E2%80%98Gentlemen,WeHaveRunOutOfMoney;NowWeHavetoThink%E2%80%99.aspx
Misattributed

Money , Thinking

“I can well imagine some circles of smart society, some groups of wealthy financiers, and the elements in this country which are attracted by the idea of a Government strong enough to keep the working classes in order; people who hate democracy and freedom, I can well imagine such people accommodating themselves fairly easy to Nazi domination. But the Trade Unionists of Britain, the intellectuals of Socialism and Radicalism, they could no more bear it than the ordinary British Tory. It would be intolerable.”

Winston S. Churchill

Speech in Horsham (23 July 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 768
The 1930s

Hate , People , Democracy , Imagination

“I then had one of the three or four long intimate conversations with him which are all I can boast.”

Winston S. Churchill book Lord Randolph Churchill

On his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, Chapter 3 (Examinations).
My Early Life: A Roving Commission (1930)

“I am sure it would be sensible to restrict as much as possible the work of these gentlemen, who are capable of doing an immense amount of harm with what may very easily degenerate into charlatanry. The tightest hand should be kept over them, and they should not be allowed to quarter themselves in large numbers among Fighting Services at the public expense.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

On psychiatrists, in a letter to John Anderson, Lord President of the Council (December 19, 1942)
In The Second World War, Volume IV : The Hinge of Fate (1951), Appendix C.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

Fight

“It was an experience of great interest to me to meet Premier Stalin … It is very fortunate for Russia in her agony to have this great rugged war chief at her head. He is a man of massive outstanding personality, suited to the sombre and stormy times in which his life has been cast; a man of inexhaustible courage and will-power and a man direct and even blunt in speech, which, having been brought up in the House of Commons, I do not mind at all, especially when I have something to say of my own. Above all, he is a man with that saving sense of humour which is of high importance to all men and all nations, but particularly to great men and great nations. Stalin also left upon me the impression of a deep, cool wisdom and a complete absence of illusions of any kind. I believe I made him feel that we were good and faithful comrades in this war – but that, after all, is a matter which deeds not words will prove.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Speech in the House of Commons, September 8, 1942 "War Situation" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1942/sep/08/war-situation#column_95.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

Life , Wisdom , Men , War

“I propose that 100,000 degenerate Britons should be forcibly sterilized and others put in labour camps to halt the decline of the British race.”

Winston S. Churchill

As Home Secretary in a 1910 Departmental Paper. The original document is in the collection of Asquith's papers at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Also quoted in Clive Ponting, "Churchill" (Sinclair Stevenson 1994).
Early career years (1898–1929)

“Fascism was the shadow or ugly child of communism… As Fascism sprang from Communism, so Nazism developed from Fascism. Thus were set on foot those kindred movements which were destined soon to plunge the world into more hideous strife, which none can say has ended with their destruction.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

The Second World War, Volume 1, The Gathering Storm, Mariner Books (1985), pp. 13-14. First published in 1948.
Post-war years (1945–1955)

World , Communication

“It is with deep grief I watch the clattering down of the British Empire, with all its glories and all the services it has rendered to mankind. … Many have defended Britain against her foes. None can defend her against herself.”

Winston S. Churchill

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1947/mar/06/india-government-policy#column_678 in the House of Commons (6 March 1947) on Indian independence
Post-war years (1945–1955)

“I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war I hoped we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations. I am sorry, however, that he has not been mellowed by the great success that has attended him. The whole world would rejoice to see the Hitler of peace and tolerance, and nothing would adorn his name in world history so much as acts of magnanimity and of mercy and of pity to the forlorn and friendless, to the weak and poor. … Let this great man search his own heart and conscience before he accuses anyone of being a warmonger.”

Winston S. Churchill

"Mr. Churchill's Reply" in The Times (7 November 1938).
The 1930s

War , World , Peace , Hope

“The object of presenting medals, stars, and ribbons is to give pride and pleasure to those who have deserved them. At the same time a distinction is something which everybody does not possess. If all have it it is of less value … A medal glitters, but it also casts a shadow.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Speech in the House of Commons, March 22, 1944 "War Decorations" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1944/mar/22/war-decorations-and-medals#column_872.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

Pleasure , Star , Time

“What is the true and original root of Dutch aversion to British rule? It is the abiding fear and hatred of the movement that seeks to place the native on a level with the white man … the Kaffir is to be declared the brother of the European, to be constituted his legal equal, to be armed with political rights.”

Winston S. Churchill book London to Ladysmith via Pretoria

On the Boer War, London to Ladysmith via Pretoria (1900).
Early career years (1898–1929)

Fear

“And now go and set Europe ablaze”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Entry from Monday 22 July 1940, foundation of the Special Operations Executive (SOE)
Dalton, Hugh (1986). The Second World War Diary of Hugh Dalton 1940-45. Jonathan Cape. p. 62. ISBN 022402065X
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“How could we bear, nursed as we have been in a free atmosphere, to be gagged and muzzled; to have spies, eavesdroppers and delators at every corner; to have even private conversations caught up and used against us by the Secret Police and all their agents and creatures; to be arrested and interned without trial; or to be tried by political or Party courts for crimes hitherto unknown to civil law. How could we bear to be treated like schoolboys when we are grown-up men; to be turned out on parade by tens of thousands to march and cheer for this slogan or for that; to see philosophers, teachers and authors bullied and toiled to death in concentration camps; to be forced every hour to conceal the natural workings of the human intellect and the pulsations of the human heart? Why, I say that rather than submit to such oppression, there is no length we would not go to.”

Winston S. Churchill

Speech at Théâtre des Ambassadeurs, Paris (24 September 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 788
The 1930s

Death , Men , Secret , Law

“In the name of liberty you have done what liberty disowns. In the name of theoretical progress, you have opened the door to practical retrogression. In the name of appeasement and the popular will, you have prescribed a course of endless irritation. … He has won his victory; he has won the victory for which he has fought hard, and long, and adroitly; but it is not a victory, in our opinion, for the interests of this country, nor a victory for the welfare of the peoples of India, and in the crashing cheers which no doubt will hail his majority to-night, we pray there may not mingle the knell of the British Empire in the East.”

Winston S. Churchill

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1935/jun/05/government-of-india-bill#column_1920 in the House of Commons (5 June 1935) addressing the Secretary of State for India Samuel Hoare
The 1930s

People , Victory , Night , Country

“The whole tendency of civilization is…towards the multiplication of the collective functions of society. The ever growing complications of civilization create for us new services which have to be undertaken by the State, and create for us an expansion of the existing services. I am of the opinion that the State should increasingly assume the position of the reserve employer of labour. I am very sorry we have not got the railways of this country in our hands. We may do something better with the canals, and we are all agreed that the State must increasingly and earnestly concern itself with the care of the sick and aged, and, above all, of the children.”

Winston S. Churchill

The People's Rights [1909] (London: Jonathan Cape, 1970), p. 154
Early career years (1898–1929)

Children , Age , Country

“The shores of History are strewn with the wrecks of Empires.”

Winston S. Churchill

Peopling the Wide, Open Spaces of Empire, News of the World, 22 May 1938
Reproduced in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol IV, Churchill at Large, Centenary Edition (1976), Library of Imperial History, p. 444. ISBN 0903988453
The 1930s

History

“The Great War through which we have passed differed from all ancient wars in the immense power of the combatants and their fearful agencies of destruction, and from all modern wars in the utter ruthlessness with which it was fought. … Europe and large parts of Asia and Africa became one vast battlefield on which after years of struggle not armies but nations broke and ran. When all was over, Torture and Cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian States had been able to deny themselves: and these were of doubtful utility.”

Winston S. Churchill book The World Crisis

The World Crisis, 1911–1914 : Chapter I (The Vials of Wrath), Churchill, Butterworth (1923), pp. 10-11.
Early career years (1898–1929)

War , Fear , Parting

“I have nothing to add to the reply which has already been sent.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Response to Dundee Council after refusing to expand on his reasons for not accepting the Freedom of the City Memo http://www.nls.uk/digitallibrary/churchill/6.9.html (October 27, 1943).
The Second World War (1939–1945)

“The news from France is very bad, and I grieve for the gallant French people who have fallen into this terrible misfortune. Nothing will alter our feelings towards them or our faith that the genius of France will rise again. What has happened in France makes no difference to our actions and purpose. We have become the sole champions now in arms to defend the world cause. We shall do our best to be worthy of this high honour. We shall defend our Island home, and with the British Empire we shall fight on unconquerable until the curse of Hitler is lifted from the brows of mankind. We are sure that in the end all will come right.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Broadcast (17 June 1940), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 566
The Second World War (1939–1945)

People , World , Faith , Feeling

“It excites world wonder in the Parliamentary countries that we should build a Chamber, starting afresh, which can only seat two-thirds of its Members. It is difficult to explain this to those who do not know our ways. They cannot easily be made to understand why we consider that the intensity, passion, intimacy, informality and spontaneity of our Debates constitute the personality of the House of Commons and endow it at once with its focus and its strength.”

Winston S. Churchill

Speech in the House of Commons, October 24, 1950 "Motion for Address in Reply" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1950/oct/24/motion-for-address-in-reply#column_2707.
Post-war years (1945–1955)

World , Way , Understanding , Passion

“I am genuinely sympathetic towards India. I have got real fears about the future. India, I feel is a burden on us. We have got to maintain an army and for the sake of India we have to maintain Singapore and Near East strength. If India could look after herself we would be delighted. … I would be only too delighted if the Reforms are a success. I have all along felt that there are fifty Indias. But you have got the thing now; make it a success and if you do I will advocate your getting much more.”

Winston S. Churchill

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. 619
The 1930s

Fear , Feeling , Success , Future

“…they were gathered together on that platform with one object. They wanted to stop this war of which they had heard so much talk. They would like to stop it while time remained, for we had had enough of the last war not to want another. The seriousness and urgency of the danger was exemplified by the divergency of political opinion represented on the platform. We had reached a fateful milestone in human history.”

Winston S. Churchill

Speech at the Albert Hall, London (3 December 1936) at a cross-party meeting organised by the League of Nations Union "in defence of freedom and peace", quoted in The Times (4 December 1936), p. 18
The 1930s

Fate , War , History , Time

“War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.”

Winston S. Churchill

On the Soviet Union’s failure to form a united Balkan front against Hitler ; in The Second World War, Volume III : The Grand Alliance (1950) Chapter 20 (The Soviet Nemesis).
Post-war years (1945–1955)

War

“Democracy means that if the doorbell rings in the early hours, it is likely to be the milkman.”

Winston S. Churchill

Widely quoted and attributed, but without a documented source.
Disputed

Democracy

“Judged by every standard which history has applied to Governments, the Soviet Government of Russia is one of the worst tyrannies that has ever existed in the world. (Cheers.) It accords no political rights. It rules by terror. It punishes political opinions. It suppresses free speech. It tolerates no newspapers but its own. It persecutes Christianity with a zeal and a cunning never equalled since the times of the Roman Emperors. It is engaged at this moment in trampling down the peoples of Georgia and executing their leaders by hundreds. It is for this process that Mr. MacDonald asks us to make ourselves responsible. We are to render these tyrannies possible by lending to their authors money to pay for the ammunition to murder the Georgians, to enable the Soviet sect to keep its stranglehold on the dumb Russian nation, and to poison the world, and so far as they can, the British Empire, with their filthy propaganda. (Cheers.) That is what we are asked to take upon ourselves. It is an outrage on the British name.”

Winston S. Churchill

Speech in Edinburgh (25 September 1924), quoted in The Times (26 September 1924), p. 14
Early career years (1898–1929)

Money , People , World , History

“I have worked very hard with Nehru. I told him he should be the light of Asia, to show all those millions how they can shine out, instead of accepting the darkness of Communism.”

Winston S. Churchill

18 February 1955, WSC to Eden’s private secretary Evelyn Shuckburgh.
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Light

“In retrospect these years form not only the least agreeable, but the only barren and unhappy period of my life. I was happy as a child with my toys in my nursery. I have been happier every year since I became a man. But this interlude of school makes a sombre grey patch upon the chart of my journey. It was an unending spell of worries that did not then seem petty, of toil uncheered by fruition; a time of discomfort, restriction and purposeless monotony. This train of thought must not lead me to exaggerate the character of my school days … Harrow was a very good school … Most of the boys were very happy … I can only record the fact that, no doubt through my own shortcomings, I was an exception. … I was on the whole considerably discouraged … All my contemporaries and even younger boys seemed in every way better adapted to the conditions of our little world. They were far better both at the games and at the lessons. It is not pleasant to feel oneself so completely outclassed and left behind at the very beginning of the race.”

Winston S. Churchill

Source: My Early Life: A Roving Commission (1930), Chapter 3 (Examinations).

Life , World , School , Way

“I marvel at the complacency of Ministers in the face of the frightful experiences through which we have all so newly passed. I look with wonder upon our thoughtless crowds disporting themselves in the summer sunshine, and upon this unfocused, unheeding House of Commons, which seems to have no higher function than to cheer a Minister. But what is happening across the narrow seas? A terrible process is astir. Germany is arming. That mighty race who fought and almost vanquished the whole world is on the march again. The whole nation is inspired with the idea of retrieving and avenging their defeat in the Great War. They have arisen from the pit of disaster in monstrous guise…. And we are still pestering France to disarm, and we are still disarmed ourselves!”

Winston S. Churchill

'How I Would Procure Peace', Daily Mail (9 July 1934), quoted in Martin Gilbert, The Churchill Documents, Volume 12: The Wilderness Years, 1929–1935 (Michigan: Hillsdale Press, 2012), p. 825, n. 3
The 1930s

War , World , Idea , Summer

“The essence of good House of Commons speaking is the conversational style, the facility for quick, informal interruptions and interchanges. Harangues from a rostrum would be a bad substitute for the conversational style in which so much of our business is done. But the conversational style requires a fairly small space, and there should be on great occasions a sense of crowd and urgency. There should be a sense of the importance of much that is said and a sense that great matters are being decided, there and then, by the House. … It has a collective personality which enjoys the regard of the public, and which imposes itself upon the conduct not only of individual Members but of parties.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Speech in the House of Commons, October 28, 1943 "House of Commons Rebuilding" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1943/oct/28/house-of-commons-rebuilding#column_403.
The Second World War (1939–1945)

Business , Sense , Housing , Personality

“Their horse cavalry, of which they had twelve brigades, charged valiantly against the swarming tanks and armoured cars but could not harm them with their swords and lances.”

Winston S. Churchill

On the Polish defense against Germany, in The Second World War, Volume I : The Gathering Storm (1948).
Post-war years (1945–1955)

Cars , Horse

“Make your minds perfectly clear that if ever you let loose upon us again a general strike, we will loose upon you — another "British Gazette."”

Winston S. Churchill

Speech in the House of Commons, July 7, 1926 "Emergency Services" http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1926/jul/07/emergency-services#column_2218 ; at this time, Churchill was serving as Chancellor of the Excheqer under Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.
Threatening the Labour Party and trade union movement with a return of the Government-published newspaper he edited during that May's General Strike.
Early career years (1898–1929)

“I see advancing upon all this in hideous onslaught the Nazi war machine, with its clanking, heel-clicking, dandified Prussian officers, its crafty expert agents fresh from the cowing and tying down of a dozen countries. I see also the dull, drilled, docile, brutish masses of the Hun soldiery plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts. I see the German bombers and fighters in the sky, still smarting from many a British whipping, delighted to find what they believe is an easier and a safer prey.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Radio broadcast (22 June 1941) on the day Germany invaded the Soviet Union, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), pp. 1120-1121
The Second World War (1939–1945)

War , Country

“I am strongly of opinion that we require to strengthen our armaments by air and upon the seas in order to make sure that we are still judges of our own fortunes, our own destinies and our own action. … Not to have an adequate air force in the present state of the world is to compromise the foundations of national freedom and independence.”

Winston S. Churchill

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1933/mar/14/supply#column_1820 in the House of Commons (14 March 1933)
The 1930s

World , Freedom , Sea

“It seems a mad business to confront these dictators without weapons or military force, and at the same time try to tame and cow the spirit of our people with peace films, anti-recruiting propaganda and resistance to defence measures. Unless the free and law-respecting nations are prepared to organise, arm and combine, they are going to be smashed up. This is going to happen quite soon. But I believe we still have a year to combine and marshal superior forces in defence of the League and its Covenant.”

Winston S. Churchill

Letter to Robert Cecil (9 April 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 722
The 1930s

People , Peace , Law , Business

“In the main, the theme is emerging of the growth of freedom and law, of the rights of the individual, of the subordination of the State to the fundamental and moral conceptions of an ever-comprehending community. Of these ideas the English-speaking peoples were the authors, then the trustees, and must now become the armed champions. Thus I condemn tyranny in whatever guise and from whatever quarter it presents itself. All this of course has a current application.”

Winston S. Churchill

Letter to Maurice Ashley (12 April 1939) on his work on A History of the English Speaking Peoples, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 1063
The 1930s

People , Law , Communication , Idea

“We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.”

Winston S. Churchill

Lecture at Cleveland, Ohio (February 3, 1932), reported in Robert Rhodes James, ed., Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963 (1974), vol. 5, p. 5130; referring to the theory that over-production caused the Depression.
The 1930s

“On September 28 the fleet hove in sight, and all came safely to anchor in Pevensey Bay. There was no opposition to the landing. The local "fyrd" had been called out this year four times already to watch the coast, and having, in true English style, come to the conclusion that the danger was past because it had not yet arrived had gone back to their homes.”

Winston S. Churchill book A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

On the landing of William the Conqueror at Pevensey; Vol I; The Birth of Britain.
A History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1956–58)

Home , Time , Past

“The substance of the eminent Socialist gentleman’s speech is that making a profit is a sin, but it is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss.”

Winston S. Churchill

Reported in James C. Humes, Speaker's Treasury of Anecdotes About the Famous (1978), p. 45, as a remark made in the House of Commons responding to a Laborite speech on the evils of free enterprise; reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).
Disputed

Loss

“Is this the end? Is it to be merely a chapter in a cruel and senseless story? Will a new generation in their turn be immolated to square the black accounts of the Teuton and Gaul? Will our children bleed and gasp again in devastated lands? Or will there spring from the very fires of conflict that reconciliation of the three giant combatants, which would unite their genius and secure to each in safety and freedom a share in rebuilding the glory of Europe.”

Winston S. Churchill book The World Crisis

The World Crisis, 1916-1918 Part II : Chapter XXIII (Victory), Churchill, Butterworth (1927), p. 544.
Early career years (1898–1929)

Children , Spring , Freedom

“Of course, when you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.”

Winston S. Churchill

In The Second World War, Volume V : Closing the Ring (1952) Chapter 12 (Island Prizes Lost).
Post-war years (1945–1955)

War

“In the twinkling of an eye I found myself without an office, without a seat, without a party, and without an appendix.”

Winston S. Churchill

"Election Memories", The Strand Magazine (September 1931).
Reproduced in Thoughts and Adventures, 1932.
The 1930s

“People often forget that in 1940 there was no guarantee that we were going to win.”

Winston S. Churchill

This quote is actually from Churchill's daughter, Lady Soames. See "The Beacon of the Western Way of Life" http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=135
Misattributed

People , Forgetting

“Socialism is, in its essence, an attack not only upon British enterprise, but upon the right of the ordinary man or woman to breathe freely without having a harsh, clumsy, tyrannical hand clapped across their mouths and nostrils. A Free Parliament—look at that—a Free Parliament is odious to the Socialist doctrinaire.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Broadcast (4 June 1945) for the 1945 general election, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Never Despair': Winston S. Churchill, 1945–1965 (London: Heinemann, 1988), p. 33
The Second World War (1939–1945)