Winston Churchill

I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel. He replied, ‘Verify your quotations.’

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.

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.

There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right.

I have never accepted what many people have kindly said-namely that I inspired the nation. Their will was resolute and remorseless, and as it proved, unconquerable. It fell to me to express it.

There must be what Mr. Gladstone many years ago called a blessed act of oblivion. We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past. We must look to the future. We cannot afford to drag forward across the years that are to come the hatreds and revenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

Life will not bear refinement. You must do as other people do.

To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.

Do the wise thing and the kind thing too, and make the best of us and not the worst.

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

One lesson we learn early, that in spite of seeming difference, men are all of one pattern. We readily assume this with our mates, and are disappointed and angry if we find that we are premature, and that their watches are slower than ours. In fact, the only sin which we never forgive in each other is difference of opinion.

The one who cannot restrain their anger will wish undone, what their temper and irritation prompted them to do.

Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody.

I suppose every old scholar has had the experience of reading something in a book which was significant to him, but which he could never find again. Sure he is that he read it there, but no one else ever read it, nor can he find it again, though he buy the book and ransack every page.

I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

Hate has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it has not solved one yet.

The greatest meliorator of the world is selfish, huckstering Trade.

See one promontory, one mountain, one sea, one river and see all.

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.