Quotes By Winston Churchill

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.

We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains unsubdued. The injury she has inflicted on Great Britain, the United States, and other countries, and her detestable cruelties, call for justice and retribution.We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our task, both at home and abroad. Advance, Britannia! Long live the cause of freedom! God save the King.

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.

The best way to insure against unemployment is to have no unemployment. ... Idlers at the top make idlers at the bottom.

I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.

Let me have the best solution worked out. Don't argue the matter. The difficulties will argue for themselves.

No, bury them in caves and cellars. None must go. We are going to beat them.

The traditional British view is that character is what matters in a general. They like a solid, simple man, with no newfangled nonsense about him. He should be preternaturally silent. If by chance he thinks at all he should not let this leak out, otherwise confidence would be destroyed.

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

War is horrible, but slavery is worse, and you may be sure that the British people would rather go down fighting than live in servitude.

Everything is overshadowed by the impending trial of will-power which is developing in Europe. I think we shall have to choose in the next few weeks between war and shame, and I have very little doubt what the decision will be.

The story of the human race is war. Except for brief and precarious interludes, there has never been peace in the world; and before history began, murderous strife was universal and unending.

The wars fanned the wings of science, and science brought to mankind a thousand blessings, a thousand problems and a thousand perils.

I do not believe in a major war this year because the French army at present is as large as that of Germany and far more mature. But next year and the year after may carry these Dictator-ridden countries to the climax of their armament and of their domestic embarrassments. We shall certainly need to be ready then.

I know that it is the Socialist idea that making profits is a vice, and that making large profits is something of which a man ought to be ashamed. I hold the other view. I consider that the real vice is making losses.

We desire to see the return of a liberal age where Parliaments will guard freedom, where science will open the banqueting halls to the millions, and where what Bismarck once called "practical Christianity" will mitigate suffering and misfortunes.

Whatever one may think about democratic government, it is just as well to have practical experience of its rough and slatternly foundations. No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.

I am trying to marshal all the forces I can to prevent this coming war, and to strengthen Britain.

The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame. The world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is some one outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be spread in vain; some one strangely enfranchised, untamed, untrammelled by convention, moving independent of the ordinary currents of human action.

We have pushed taxation of wealth to a point in Great Britain where in many cases the yield would be greater if the rate were less. The idea that prosperity can be wooed by chasing millionaires is one of the most common and most foolish of modern popular delusions.