Winston Churchill

It is all right to rat, but you can’t re-rat.

Short words are the best and old words when short are best of all.

When I warned them the French that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken. Some chicken! Some neck!

I was not the lion, but it fell to me to give the lion’s roar.

It cannot in the opinion of His Majesty’s Government be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude.

Thus, then, on the night of the tenth of May, at the outset of this mighty battle, I acquired the chief power in the State, which henceforth I wielded in ever-growing measure for five years and three months of world war, at the end of which time, all our enemies having surrendered unconditionally or being about to do so, I was immediately dismissed by the British electorate from all further conduct of their affairs.

We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity.

I attribute whatever I may have been able to accomplish in life far more to my wife than to anything else and to everything else put together. But I cannot flatter myself that I found her because I was a ‘good picker’, I believe profoundly that we are guided, led, in such momentous matters.

A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.

I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.

These are our neighbours, our co-workers, friends’ children… the problem is closer than you think, but so is the solution.

If you go into a union, they have got you, but what have you got?

There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable.

If I was on the air and was just kind of a plain-vanilla personality that took the safe road and the safe way trying to please all of the people all of the time, I’d been gone in two weeks.

If you really understand Zen, you can use any book, even the dictionary, because the sound of the rain needs no translation.

We are entering an era when we shall create resources which shall be so constantly renewed that the only loss will be not to use them. There will be such a plenteous supply of heat, light and power, that it will be a sin not to use all we want. This era is coming now. And it is coming by way of Water.

One of the greatest discoveries a person makes, one of their great surprises, is to find they can do what they were afraid they couldn’t do.

If a girl have beef with me, she gon’ have beef with me forever.

I hope that while so many people are out smelling the flowers, someone is taking the time to plant some.

Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.