Quotes from Winston Churchill

The Russians will sweep through your country and your people will be liquidated. You are on the verge of annihilation.

Terminological inexactitude.

We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

The V sign is the symbol of the unconquerable will of the occupied territories, and a portent of the fate awaiting the Nazi tyranny.

Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. Not content with having all Europe under his heel, or else terrorized into various forms of abject submission, he must now carry his work of butchery and desolation among the vast multitudes of Russia and of Asia…. So now this bloodthirsty guttersnipe must launch his mechanized armies upon new fields of slaughter, pillage and devastation.

He [President Franklin D. Roosevelt] died in harness, and we may well say in battle harness, like his soldiers, sailors, and airmen, who side by side with ours are carrying on their task to the end all over the world. What an enviable death was his.

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

When I was younger I made it a rule never to take a strong drink before lunch. It is now my rule never to do so before breakfast.

Nature will not be admired by proxy.

We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.

We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end.

The wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings.

We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.

I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colors. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.

What kind of people do they [the Japanese] think we are? Is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?

We shall defend every village, every town and every city. The vast mass of London itself, fought street by street, could easily devour an entire hostile army; and we would rather see London laid in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved.

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can.

A lady came up to me one day and said 'Sir! You are drunk', to which I replied 'I am drunk today madam, and tomorrow I shall be sober but you will still be ugly.

The late M. Venizelos observed that in all her wars England—he should have said Britain, of course—always wins one battle—the last.

Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt…. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.

I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire.

The short words are best, and the old words are the best of all.