Winston Churchill

Play the game for more than you can afford to lose… only then will you learn the game.

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 only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.

The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.

Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.

I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

Shame arises from the fear of men, conscience from the fear of God.

If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

Of what use, however, is a general certainty that an insect will not walk with his head hindmost, when what you need to know is the play of inward stimulus that sends him hither and thither in a network of possible paths?

Tis a rule of manners to avoid exaggeration.

Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven’t courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.

We know but a few men, a great many coats and breeches.

The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy. Collect and learn them; they are notable measures of directions for human life; you have much in little; they save time in speaking; and upon occasion may be the fullest and safest answer.

Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.

Justice though moving with tardy pace, has seldom failed to overtake the wicked in their flight.

Sir, a man may be so much of everything, that he is nothing of anything.

I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence.

There are no secrets better kept than the secrets that everybody guesses.