Winston Churchill

I have been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who get drunk.

There are few virtues that the Poles do not possess and there are few errors they have ever avoided.

Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gongthese are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.

Civilisation will not last, freedom will not survive, peace will not be kept, unless a very large majority of mankind unite together to defend them and show themselves possessed of a constabulary power before which barbaric and atavistic forces will stand in awe.

Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.

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

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, a practiced man relies on the language of the first.

Responsibilities are given to him on whom trust rests. Responsibility is always a sign of trust.

The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.

A portion of mankind take pride in their vices and pursue their purpose; many more waver between doing what is right and complying with what is wrong.

How earthy old people become moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.

You cannot have power for good without having power for evil too. Even mother’s milk nourishes murderers as well as heroes.

For disappointments, that come not by our own folly, they are the trials or corrections of Heaven: and it is our own fault, if they prove not our advantage.

Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.

In heaven an angel is no one in particular.

Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.

Nature arms each man with some faculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any other.

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.