Winston Churchill

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

We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.

I was very glad that Mr. Attlee described my speeches in the war as expressing the will not only of Parliament but of the whole nation. Their will was resolute and remorseless and, as it proved, unconquerable. It fell to me to express it, and if I found the right words you must remember that I have always earned my living by my pen and by my tongue. It was a nation and race dwelling all round the globe that had the lion heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.

The late M. Venizelos observed that in all her wars Englandhe should have said Britain, of coursealways wins one battlethe last.

I do not hold that we should rearm in order to fight. I hold that we should rearm in order to parley.

Although personally I am quite content with existing explosives, I feel we must not stand in the path of improvement.

We need not worry so much about what man descends from; it’s what he descends to that shames the human race.

People of great position are servants times three, servants of their country, servants of fame, and servants of business.

Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

Books are delightful society. If you go into a room and find it full of books – even without taking them from the shelves they seem to speak to you, to bid you welcome.

Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up.

It is only through labour and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage; that we move on to better things.

There are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Tragedy was foresworn, in ritual denial of the ripe knowledge that we are drawing away from one another, that we share only one thing, share the fear of belonging to another, or to others, or to God; love or money, tender equated in advertising and the world, where only money is currency, and under dead trees and brittle ornaments prehensile hands exchange forgeries of what the heart dare not surrender.

The endearing elegance of female friendship.

Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.

Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.

You are perfect. An exquisitely fine work of art, labor of love, suspended in silence. Bejeweled, trembling, kissed by a breeze, mesmerized by your beauty. You await in silence, beckoning me to a silken-wrapped slumber.

I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

The power which resides in man is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.