Winston Churchill

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

They are decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

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.

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

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

Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences…Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.

When we hang the capitalists they will sell us the rope we use.

…there is definitely a sector of the population that considers themselves threatened by big forces, ranging from the Federal Reserve to the Council on Foreign Relations to big government to who knows what and are calling for guns to protect themselves.

The beauty of our system is that it isolates everybody. Each person is sitting alone in front of the tube, you know. It’s very hard to have ideas or thoughts under those circumstances. You can’t fight the world alone.

What a waste that we lost Mussolini. He is a first-rate man who would have led our party to power in Italy.

We need to be very careful. Democracy is the issue, and democracy ought to be the means by which we decide these issues, rather than secret negotiations resulting in a fait accompli being presented to us.

We don’t want an America that is closed to the world. What we want is a world that is open to America.

In our system leadership is by consent, not command. To lead a President must persuade. Personal contacts and experiences help shape his thinking. They can be critical to his persuasiveness and thus to his leadership.

The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead.

When they go low, we go high.

But you really have to think through the talk about nonviolence. Sure, everybody’s in favor of nonviolence rather than violence, but under what conditions and when? Is it an absolute principle?

This creature softened my heart of stone. She died and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity.

I was in Moscow recently and I spoke, indirectly and directly, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer, and we had a tremendous success.

We will no longer outsource to other countries. We build factories here in America and create jobs. We will provide jobs for all who are free from prisons as we abolish the 13th amendment.

If you want my personal attitude, I would tell you that I don’t care about a person’s sexual orientation.