Winston S. Churchill Quotes

“We must learn to draw from misfortune the means of future strength.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“It is a real pleasure to me, who have known the difficulties of such things, to read of so great a success; and when that is due to a man for whom one has feelings of personal friendship, it adds to the happiness of life.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“it is only experience and disillusionment that make me cautious.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“We shall never shake ourselves clear from the debts of the past and break into a definitely larger period except by the energetic creation of new wealth.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“I am aiming at is a substantial diminution in actual burden on the direct taxpayer. I believe that this burden is at the present time a grave discouragement to enterprise and thrift and a potent factor in the tendency to high profits. I want to make a real impression upon this.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“I think the rich, whether idle or not, are already taxed in this country to the very highest point compatible with the accumulation of capital for future production.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“The United States has a will of its own, very clearly and obstinately expressed, namely, to exact payment from Great Britain. France has a will of her own, equally clearly expressed, namely, to pay nobody.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“We can avoid all this trouble by throwing up the sponge, by sitting still and putting up with being fleeced. Then there will be lots of compliments about the good feelings which we have established in Europe and about what a very agreeable and friendly nation we are. But I think this is a pretty thin diet to give to the taxpayers of this country in their present circumstances. The”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“That same day he wrote to Austen Chamberlain, to explain that he would soon have to ask for ‘substantial repayments’ of French and Italian war debts, already more than six years overdue.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“Hatred of him was aflame’, and he added: ‘No insults were too gross to hurl at him. One, of course, the Dardanelles fiasco, regarded as his particular crime, was always brought up…. The opposition were determined to shout him down. He was always admirably self-controlled and good-tempered, and he never failed to quell the opposition and get a hearing.’ Whenever Churchill spoke, he was confronted by a vociferous group of hecklers, whom he dubbed ‘the Socialist travelling circus’. To one question about the Dardanelles, on November 27, he replied: ‘What do you know about that? The Dardanelles might have saved millions of lives.’ And he continued: ‘Don’t imagine I am running away from the Dardanelles. I glory in it.’41 On December 3 Churchill was in London, where he spoke to large, noisy meetings at Finsbury Park, Shepherd’s Bush and Walthamstow. After his final speech, at Walthamstow, he had to be escorted from the hall to his car by mounted police. Then, as the Leicester Daily Mercury reported: ‘A vast crowd closed round the car hooting and jeering.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“led Churchill to work with many disparate groups to try to influence public opinion towards the need for greater vigilance in defence of democracy, faith in the moral tenets of the anti-totalitarian cause, the closest possible Anglo-French cooperation and a willingness to take up arms, if necessary, in order to ensure the survival of democratic civilization. Other”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“The Government’s repeated response, however, even after October 1938, was to continue to attack his motives and judgement, and to seek to minimize the importance of his information. ‘No doubt it is not popular to say these things,’ Churchill had written to his wife on 26 September 1935, ‘but I am accustomed to abuse and I expect to have a great deal more of it before I have finished. Somebody has to state the truth.’ During”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“He rejected the policy of seeking a direct accommodation with the Nazis at the expense of the smaller states of Europe. The full extent of Nazi persecution was evidence, as he saw it, that there would never be any meaningful accommodation between Nazism and Parliamentary democracy. From the earliest successes of the Nazi movement, even before 1933, he expressed his repugnance of Nazi excesses, and he continued to do so after 1933, despite repeated German protests at his articles and speeches. Nothing could persuade him to accept the possibility of compromise with evil at the expense of others, or to abandon his faith in the rule of law, the supremacy of elected Parliaments and the rights of the individual.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“Churchill himself favoured full provincial autonomy for the Indians, with adequate safeguards for the minority rights of the Muslims and the Untouchables, and he urged a vigorous social reform and a more liberal administration.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“From 1933 the problems of defence, and of the Nazi danger, were uppermost in Churchill’s mind, dominating his Parliamentary speeches, his literary work, his newspaper articles and much of his private correspondence.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“It is nothing to me whether I am in Parliament or not,’ he wrote to his wife on 8 March 1935, ‘unless I can defend the cause in which I believe.’ Churchill’s five-year opposition to the Government’s India policy was sincere and passionate, although individual Ministers sought to portray him as an enemy of Indian aspirations, and as a political wrecker. Churchill was in fact concerned throughout with the future welfare and unity of India, and was worried about the social and political difficulties which would be created by the dominance of the Congress Party.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“With the fall of the Conservative Government in 1929, Churchill’s career entered a stormy and often lonely decade, the so-called ‘wilderness years’.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“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.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“When Hogg asked Churchill directly: ‘Is there a shadow of truth in any of the accusations made against you,’ Churchill replied: ‘Not the slightest. From beginning to end it is a monstrous and malicious invention.’ Douglas”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“Don’t imagine I am running away from the Dardanelles. I glory in it.’41 On”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“Hatred of him was aflame’, and he added: ‘No insults were too gross to hurl at him. One, of course, the Dardanelles fiasco, regarded as his particular crime, was always brought up…. The opposition were determined to shout him down. He was always admirably self-controlled and good-tempered, and he never failed to quell the opposition and get a hearing.’ Whenever Churchill spoke, he was confronted by a vociferous group of hecklers, whom he dubbed ‘the Socialist travelling circus’.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“Mind you true tragedy, supreme tragedy are not the worst in life, far from it: the squalid morass of unattempting impotence is the stifling of the soul and hope of man.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“The passivity of the present Govt is beyond belief.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“led Churchill to work with many disparate groups to try to influence public opinion towards the need for greater vigilance in defence of democracy, faith in the moral tenets of the anti-totalitarian cause,”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“No doubt it is not popular to say these things,’ Churchill had written to his wife on 26 September 1935, ‘but I am accustomed to abuse and I expect to have a great deal more of it before I have finished. Somebody has to state the truth.’ During”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“The Government’s repeated response, however, even after October 1938, was to continue to attack his motives and judgement, and to seek to minimize the importance of his information.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“How often I find myself called wrong,’ Churchill had written to his wife on 17 April 1924, ‘for warning of follies in time.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“Although the Government and the Air Ministry sought to weaken the impact of Churchill’s warnings by accusing him of exaggeration, within four years they were forced to recognize that the true situation was as he had forecast.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“In his continued forecasts of the potential German air strength, Churchill has often been accused of exaggeration.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)

“Nothing could persuade him to accept the possibility of compromise with evil at the expense of others, or to abandon his faith in the rule of law, the supremacy of elected Parliaments and the rights of the individual.”
― Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V)