Quotes from Andrew Roberts

The reverse side of Churchill's unquestioning belief in the greatness of the British race Ã¢â'¬â€œ which so fortified him in the Second World War Ã¢â'¬â€œ was his dangerous assumption of the inferiority of other races

incontrovertible.

Churchill also kept pigs and had a wire brush attached to a long stick in order to scratch their backs. 'Dogs look up to you,' he told an aide in 1952, 'cats look down on you. Give me a pig! He looks you in the eye and treats you as an equal.

For every American who died, the Japanese lost 6 people, the Germans 11, and the Russians 92.

Hatred plays the same part in Government as acids in chemistry

Churchill sensed he was speaking into a void, and years later he wrote of that debate, 'I felt a sensation of despair. To be so entirely convinced and vindicated in a matter of life and death to one's country, and not to be able to make Parliament and the nation heed the warning, or bow to the proof by taking action, was an experience most painful.

not to threaten to resign unless one is prepared to go into the wilderness.

The lack of a compass did not seem to concern him, as he would orient himself by the stars, one star in particular. 'Orion shone brightly,' he later recalled. 'Scarcely a year before he had guided me when lost in the desert to the banks of the Nile. He had given me water. Now he should lead me to freedom.' 79 People often believe in their stars in a general way; Churchill actually specified which one it was.

It was the Russians who provided the oceans of blood necessary to defeat Germany, and it cannot be reiterated enough that out of every five Germans killed in combat – that is, on the battlefield rather than in aerial bombing or through other means – four died on the Eastern Front.

This is the usual way in which the State Department, without taking the least responsibility for the outcome, makes comments of an entirely unhelpful character in a spirit of complete detachment.'82

The neglect and emotional cruelty at the hands of his parents that could have crushed a lesser person instead gave Churchill an unquenchable desire to succeed in life, not only in general but in his father's chosen profession of politics.

Shortly after 8 a.m. on Sunday, 24 January 1965, the noble heart of Sir Winston Spencer-Churchill beat its last.

how little friendship counted at the top of politics

Parliament must give us more powers Ã¢â'¬â€œ very few would vote against it. We are now being disintegrated [sic] in morale.

It turned out to be fortunate that Churchill did not meet Hitler, as the encounter proved an embarrassment to several of those Britons, such as Lloyd George, the Duke of Windsor and Churchill's cousin Lord Londonderry, who did.

In his last letter to Hitler, on December 1941, Gandhi praised the Führer's 'bravery [and] devotion to your Fatherland . . . Nor do we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents.'82 Gandhi was fortunate that it was the Viceroy who ruled India rather than Hitler; the Führer's advice to Lord Halifax when they met at Berchtesgaden in 1937 had been 'Shoot Gandhi.

In 1934, Churchill had predicted chaos when 'under the pressure of continuous attack upon London, three or four million people would be driven out into the open country around the metropolis'.3 In the event, three million people, the quarter of the city's population who were non-essential for the war effort, had already been calmly and safely evacuated all over the country, and there was no panic in the capital.

Like his other articles on Hitler, Churchill submitted this in advance to the Foreign Office, which asked him to tone it down. He did, a little. When they still complained of its toughness, he published it anyway.

Churchill insisted that the Government stayed in Whitehall throughout the Blitz. 'Mr Churchill took the view', recorded Thompson, 'that it was essential that they took at least the same chances as the remainder of the population of London.

To understand a man,' Napoleon once said, 'look at the world when he was twenty.

True heroism consists of being superior to the ills of life, in whatever shape they may challenge to the combat.' Napoleon on board HMS Northumberland, 1815

he demonstrated a flexibility of principle that verged on opportunism.

The whole world reveres / the Hero of France / He is the God of War / He is the Angel of Peace.'11

The true conquests, the only ones that cause no regret, are those made over ignorance.