The price of greatness is responsibility. Winston Churchill, Finest Hour
The prime minister of Great Briton has nothing to hide from the president of the United States. Winston Churchill, allegedly stepping from bath to greet Roosevelt
The Era of Procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to an end. In its place we are entering an era of consequences. Winston Churchill
The quarrel between a tremendous democratic electorate and a one-sided hereditary chamber of wealthy men has often been threatened, has often been averted, has been long debated, has been long delayed, but it has always been inevitable, and it has come at last. It is now open, it is now flagrant, and it must now be carried to a conclusion. Winston Churchill, The People’s Rights, 1909
There is a nation which with all its strength and virtue is in the grip of a brutal, ruthless men preaching a gospel of intolerance and racial pride. Now they are re-arming with the utmost steel. Winston Churchill, 1934
There is always a strong case for doing nothing, especially for doing nothing yourself. Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, 1911-1914
There is nothing wrong with change if it is in the right direction. Winston Churchill
These are not dark days: these are great days – the greatest days our country has ever lived. Winston Churchill
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. Winston Churchill
This world conspiracy has been steadily growing. This conspiracy played a definite recognizable role in the tragedy of the French revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the 19th century. And now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their head and have become the undisputed masters of that enormous empire. Winston Churchill, to London Press 1922
To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war. Winston Churchill, misattributed; According to Churchill’s biographer, Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill actually said ‘Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war’; Harold Macmillan later wrongly attributed jumbled quote to Churchill
True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information. Winston Churchill
Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us now. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’ Winston Churchill, speech House of Commons 18 June 1940
War is mainly a catalogue of blunders. Winston Churchill
We make this wide encircling movement in the Mediterranean, having for its primary object the recovery of the command of that vital sea, but also having for its object the exposure of the underbelly of the Axis, especially Italy, to heavy attack. Winston Churchill, speech House of Commons 11th November 1942
We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old. Winston Churchill, speech House of Commons 4 June 1940
What kind of a people do they think we are? Is it possible they do not realise that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget? Winston Churchill, speech to joint session of Congress 26th December 1941
When I warned them [French Government] that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their prime minister and his divided Cabinet, ‘In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken.’ Some chicken! Some neck! Winston Churchill, speech to Canadian parliament 30 December 1941
When the war of the giants is over the wars of the pygmies will begin. Winston Churchill, Armistice night on leaving House of Commons
You have only to endure to conquer. Winston Churchill, Guildhall 4 September 1914
You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police ... yet in their hearts there is unspoken fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts: words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home – all the more powerful because forbidden – terrify them. A little mouse of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic. Winston Churchill, broadcast to the United States from London 16 October 1938
Dictatorship – the fetish worship of one man – is a passing phase. A state of society where men may not speak their minds, where children denounce their parents to the police, where a business man or small shopkeeper ruins his competitor by telling tales about his private opinions; such a state of society cannot long endure if brought into contact with the healthy outside world. The light of civilised progress with its tolerances and co-operation, with its dignities and joys, has often in the past been blotted out. ibid.
You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war. Winston S Churchill, purported letter to Chamberlain
In the 1930s Churchill was thought a dangerous eccentric, who by his constant call for more arms was more likely to bring about war. Churchill already had a long history in British politics. And not a history covered in glory. As a cabinet minister in World War I he was forced to resign over disastrously conceived campaigns which had cost thousands of lives. As peacetime chancellor finance minister he had been forced to resign over catastrophic handling of the economy causing economic chaos. World War II: The Complete History: The End of Illusion, 2009
Amazingly, Churchill had held the same job in the First World War. Churchill had been the sternest critic to the government in the pre-war years as a maverick in the political wilderness, calling for more arms and a military response to Hitler. He had lost office in World War I through strategic adventure, impulsive wild schemes, particularly in Turkey where many thousands of lives were lost in a failed operation. Returning to office, these traits re-emerged. He showed tremendous energy in organising and preparing the British Navy for War. But a series of wild schemes began to emerge. ibid.
Churchill, as Britain’s first Lord of the Admiralty in charge of Britain’s Navy, showed the wild maverick side of his Nature. He insisted that defence measures were not enough, and demanded search and destroy patrols be launched against submarines. Going against all advice that this was a poor way to deal with U-boats, Churchill rejected the advice of the admirals. The result was that one Britain aircraft carrier The Courageous was sunk, and another badly damaged. World War II: The Complete History: The War that Wasn’t
The story of Dieppe displays the classic ingredients of poor planning, poor intelligence, of over-optimism and political interference that contributed to military disaster. World War II: The Complete History: The End of the Beginning
Just weeks after the War in Europe had been won, Winston Churchill was fighting another battle – to be prime minister ... What happened next, many still can’t understand ... Churchill was humiliated at the polls. Churchill: When Britain Said No, BBC 2015
The nation was shocked to hear Churchill compare Labour to the Gestapo. ibid.
Churchill had fought bitterly with dockers, miners and the TUC. ibid.
A simple exercise in logistics. Nothing very complicated. He merely wants Winston Churchill brought from London to Berlin. And we are ordered to make a feasibility study. The Eagle Has Landed 1976 starring Michael Caine & Donald Sutherland & Robert Duvall & Jenny Agutter & Donald Pleasence & Anthony Quayle & Jean Marsh & Sven-Bertil Taube & Siegfried Rauch & John Standing & Judy Geeson et al, director
We who have lived through two terrible wars, and now live in the precarious days of the Hydrogen bomb, understand the need to build a lasting peace between nations. Churchill’s Secret, Churchill’s after-dinner speech, opening scene, ITV 2016
He may not last the weekend. ibid. Doctor
He [Churchill] led the British people into a world of his own imagining. They were drawn by the power of his imagination into an idealised vision of Britain’s past. A dream from a world that was long gone. Adam Curtis, The Living Dead III: The Attic, BBC 1995
Few men in the long history of the British empire won the deep respect and admiration of the entire nation as Winston Spencer Churchill did in the darkest days of World War II. Secrets of War s1e44: Churchill’s Gambles
He’s been a soldier, a spy, an author, a successful politician. ibid.
A bold and secret plan: British ships would sneak into the Dardanelles Straight separating Asia Minor and Turkey … but the British underestimated coastal defence … the operation turned into a quagmire … thousands of British soldiers lost their lives. ibid.
By the mid-1930s Churchill had already begun his secret war against Hitler. ibid.
He used secret intelligence not only for the battlefield but for the political arena as well. ibid.
As he wrestled with the colossal burden of power he was also confronted with secret, private pleasures. This is the story of an affair that has remained hidden for 80 years. The story of sensual, intimate compromising portraits. A tale of romance and tragedy. Secret History: Churchill’s Secret Affair, Channel 4 2018
It’s the story of a marriage on the brink of collapse. And of how Churchill’s reckless holiday romance came back to haunt him: Doris Castlerosse. ibid.