Quotes from Winston Churchill

In order to become a great man, one must first be a great rascal.

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is a fateful fatalistic apathy.

You can measure a man's character by the choices he makes under pressure.

A single glass of champagne imparts a feeling of exhilaration. The nerves are braced, the imagination is agreeably stirred, the wits become more nimble. A bottle produces a contrary effect. Excess causes a comatose insensibility. So it is with war, and the quality of both is best discovered by sipping.

I could not live without Champagne. In victory I deserve it. In defeat I need it.

Statesmen are not called upon only to settle easy questions. These often settle themselves. It is where the balance quivers, and the proportions are veiled in mist, that the opportunity for world-saving decisions presents itself.

The longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward.

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.

There is, therefore, wisdom in reserving one's decisions as long as possible and until all the facts and forces that will be potent at the moment are revealed.

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

Mr. Chamberlain loves the working man, he loves to see him work.

The only guide to man is his conscience.

Rules were made for fools to follow and wise men to be guided by.

Men often stumble onto the truth but then quickly dust themselves off and hurry away.

One may imagine that a man who blew the trumpet for his living would be glad to play the violin for his amusement.

In Russia a man is called reactionary if he objects to having his property stolen and his wife and children murdered.

Advertising nourishes the consuming power of men.

Politics are almost as exciting as war and quite as dangerous. In war you can be killed only once, but in politics many times.

It is hard, if not impossible, to snub a beautiful woman - they remain beautiful and the snub recoils.

United wishes and goodwill cannot overcome brute facts.

[T]ruth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it. Ignorance may deride it. Malice may distort it. But there it is.

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time...

The human story does not always unfold like a mathematical calculation on the principle that two and two make four. Sometimes in life they make five or minus three; and sometimes the blackboard topples down in the middle of the sum and leaves the class in disorder and the pedagogue with a black eye.