Winston Churchill

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.

The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.

Judged by every standard which history has applied to Governments, the Soviet Government of Russia is one of the worst tyrannies that has ever existed in the world. It accords no political rights. It rules by terror. It punishes political opinions. It suppresses free speech. It tolerates no newspapers but its own. It persecutes Christianity with a zeal and a cunning never equalled since the times of the Roman Emperors. It is engaged at this moment in trampling down the peoples of Georgia and executing their leaders by hundreds.

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.

There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right.

Twenty to twenty-five! These are the years! Dont be content with things as they are. Dont take No for an answer. Never submit to failure. Do not be fobbed off with mere personal success or acceptance. You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was made to be wooed and won by youth. She has lived and thrived only by repeated subjugations.

Help a man against his will and you do the same as murder him.

Man was born to be rich, or grow rich by use of his faculties, by the union of thought with nature. Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players.

Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.

Every great man, every successful man, no matter what the field of endeavor, has known the magic that lies in these words: every adversity has the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.

Damn the subjunctive. It brings all our writers to shame.

Courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

Gross and obscure natures, however decorated, seem impure shambles; but character gives splendor to youth, and awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.

Necessity, who is the mother of invention.

Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.

It took me twenty years of studied self-restraint, aided by the natural decay of my faculties, to make myself dull enough to be accepted as a serious person by the British public.

Haven’t you learned yet that I put something more than whisky into my speeches.

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.

There was never a century nor a country that was short of experts who knew the Deity’s mind and were willing to reveal it.

If I cannot brag of knowing something, then I brag of not knowing it; at any rate, brag.