Winston Churchill

When the eagles are silent the parrots begin to jabber.

If you are going through hell, keep going.

If I was your wife Sir, I’d poison you! Madam, if you were my wife, I’d let you!

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

We have all seen with a sense of nausea the abject, squalid, shameless avowal made in the Oxford Union. We are told that we ought not to treat it seriously. The Times talked of the childrens hour. I disagree. It is a very disquieting and disgusting symptom. One can almost feel the curl of contempt upon the lips of the manhood of Germany, Italy, and France when they read the message sent out by Oxford University in the name of Young England. Let them be assured that it is not the last word. But before they blame, as blame they should, these callow ill-tutored youths, they must be sure that they have not been set a bad example by people much older and much higher up.

Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods.

Every hero becomes a bore at last.

Who then is free? The wise man who can command himself.

If you have inner peace, nobody can force you to be a slave to the outer reality.

Give, even if you only have little.

Life at its noblest leaves mere happiness far behind; and indeed cannot endure it. Happiness is not the object of life: life has no object: it is an end in itself; and courage consists in the readiness to sacrifice happiness for an intenser quality of life.

Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.

Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.

Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. They have the same effect of grating incongruity as the sound of a coarse voice breaking the solemn silence of night.

You will know (the good from the bad) when you are calm, at peace. Passive.

Rarely promise, but, if lawful, constantly perform.

Drunkenness spoils health, dismounts the mind, and unmans man. It reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous, and mad.

The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.

The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.

Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo.