“Although always prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it should be postponed.”
Source: My Early Life: A Roving Commission (1930), Chapter 4 (Sandhurst), p. 72.
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Winston S. Churchill 601
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1874–1965Related quotes
No. 365.
Spiritual Exercises (1548)
1870s, Letter to Daniel Ammen (1877)
Context: For the last eight weeks I have seen but few American papers, and am consequently behind in home news. The foreign papers, however, have been full of the great railroad strike, and no doubt exaggerated it, bad as it was. The United States should always be prepared to put down such demonstrations promptly and with severe consequences for the guilty. I hope good may come out of this, in pointing out the necessity for having the proper remedy at hand in case of need. 'An ounce of preservation is worth a pound of cure'.
Journal entry (29 January 1922), published in The Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927)
Context: Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order. This is what life has taught me.
“A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.”
Letter to the Daily Advertiser http://books.google.com/books?ei=dUcWTpuaHsT0gAfPpeEL&ct=result&dq=&jtp=245&id=x5q-cszpoPYC&ots=j0QS9L0jfK#v=onepage&q&f=false (21 February 1797)
“Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.”
As quoted in Photographers on Photography : A Critical Anthology (1966) by Nathan Lyons, p. 80 <!-- "Man Ray Photographs 1920-1934" MAN RAY, Modern Photography, November 1957, p. 85. THE AGE OF LIGHT 1934 Preface to Man Ray Photographs 1920-1934, Paris, Hartford, James T. Soby ??? -->
Context: Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask "how", while others of a more curious nature will ask "why". Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.
Source: The Seven Storey Mountain (1948), p. 252
“I should therefore prefer to restrict my guidelines to the following:”
Don't believe that military interventions, no matter how morally justified, can succeed without clear military goals
Don't fall into the trap of imagining that the West can remake societies
Don't take public opinion for granted – but don't either underrate the degree to which good people will endure sacrifices for a worthwhile cause
Don't allow tyrants and aggressors to get away with it
And when you fight – fight to win.
Source: Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, p. 39