Churchill Quotes

“In the Commons, Churchill defended his cutting back on the imprisonment of young offenders by drawing Members’ attention to the fact that ‘the evil only falls on the sons of the working classes. The sons of other classes commit many of the same offences. In their boisterous and exuberant spirits in their days at Oxford and Cambridge they commit offences—for which scores of the sons of the working class are committed to prison—without any injury being inflicted on them.’ There”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“That winter the son’s need for his father’s love was again disappointed. On November 10, three weeks before his twelfth birthday, he wrote to him, ‘You never came to see me on Sunday when you were in Brighton.’ This was the second time his father had been in Brighton but had not gone to see him.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“There was a middle way between capitalism and socialism. ‘I do not want to see impaired the vigour of competition,’ Churchill told his Glasgow audience, ‘but we can do much to mitigate the consequences of failure. We want to draw a line below which we will not allow persons to live and labour, yet above which they may compete with all the strength of their manhood. We want to have free competition upwards; we decline to allow free competition to run downwards. We do not want to pull down the structures of science and civilisation; but to spread a net over the abyss.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“Even if the tutoring was only for one hour a day, he told his mother, ‘I shall feel that I have got to be back at a certain time and it would hang like a dark shadow over my pleasure’.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“His finest hour was the leadership of Britain when it was most isolated, most threatened and most weak; when his own courage, determination and belief in democracy became at one with the nation.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“The mild and vague Liberalism of the early years of the twentieth century, the surge of fantastic hopes and illusions that followed the armistice of the Great War have already been superseded by a violent reaction against Parliamentary and electioneering procedure and by the establishment of dictatorships real or veiled in almost every country. Moreover the loss of our external connections, the shrinkage in foreign trade and shipping brings the surplus population of Britain within measurable distance of utter ruin.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“there is no evil worse than submitting to wrong and violence for fear of war. Once you take the position of not being able in any circumstances to defend your rights against the aggression of some particular set of people, there is no end to the demands that will be made or to the humiliations that must be accepted.’ This was the essence of Churchill’s criticism of appeasement from weakness.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“though in the year before the first use of X-rays this was not known; indeed, it did not become known for seventy years, when this same thigh was X-rayed after a fall in Monte Carlo in 1963.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“My life has been a pleasant one and though I should regret to leave it, it would be a regret that perhaps I should never know.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“Cada sentença deve ser concebida com o objetivo de recuperá-los e prepará-los para o mundo: seria de fato uma medida mais disciplinar e educativa do que penal.” Na Câmara dos Comuns , Churchill defendeu a redução do encarceramento de jovens criminosos chamando atenção para o fato de que “o mal cai apenas sobre os filhos das classes trabalhadoras. Os filhos de outras classes cometem muitos dos mesmos delitos, influenciados pelos ânimos turbulentos e exuberantes em Oxford e Cambridge, sem que lhes seja aplicada qualquer pena”.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: uma vida – vol. 1

“Havia um caminho intermediário entre o capitalismo e o socialismo. “Não desejo ver o vigor da competição enfraquecido”, disse Churchill ao seu público em Glasgow, “mas podemos fazer muito para mitigar as consequências do fracasso. Queremos traçar uma linha abaixo da qual não permitiremos que as pessoas vivam e trabalhem, elevando-as para que possam competir com toda a força de sua humanidade. Queremos uma livre competição dirigida para cima e nos negamos a permitir que essa livre competição leve para baixo. Não queremos destruir as estruturas da ciência e da civilização, mas sim estender uma rede sobre o abismo”. No”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: uma vida – vol. 1

“Principalmente, declarou, “desejava o estabelecimento universal dos padrões mínimos de vida e de trabalho para todos e sua progressiva elevação à medida que o aumento da produção permitisse”.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: uma vida – vol. 1

“toda a tendência da civilização” ia na direção “da multiplicação das funções coletivas da sociedade”. O Estado devia desempenhar um papel cada vez mais relevante e, por exemplo, “preocupar-se cada vez mais intensamente com o cuidado dos doentes e idosos e, acima de tudo, das crianças”.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: uma vida – vol. 1

“sob a bandeira do protecionismo. Seria “um partido de grandes direitos adquiridos”, declarou, “unidos numa formidável federação, com corrupção em casa e agressão no estrangeiro para encobri-la, com a trapaça dos malabarismos com os impostos, com a tirania de uma máquina do partido, com sentimentalismo e patriotismo aos litros, com o Tesouro e a porta da Casa Pública abertos, com comida cara para milhões e com mão de obra barata para o milionário”.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: uma vida – vol. 1

“Sempre foi considerada uma infelicidade para um país ser governado por um ponto de vista particular ou no interesse de qualquer classe particular, quer fosse a corte, a Igreja, o Exército ou as classes mercantil ou trabalhadora”, disse ele. “Todos os países devem ser governados de um ponto de vista central em que todas as classes e todos os interesses estejam proporcionalmente representados, e atrevo-me a pensar que até nesses tempos modernos esse princípio se aplica ao nosso governo.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: uma vida – vol. 1

“A democracia é mais vingativa do que os governos. As guerras entre os povos serão mais terríveis do que as guerras entre os reis”.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: uma vida – vol. 1

“A campanha pelo direito de voto das mulheres era, contudo, “um movimento ridículo”. O voto para as mulheres devia ser evitado. “Uma vez que se conceda o voto a um grande número de mulheres, que constituem a maior parte da sociedade”, advertiu ele, “todo o poder passará para as mãos delas”.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: uma vida – vol. 1

“Hitler promulgated the first of a series of laws that rapidly increased and consolidated his power; this first law enabled him to silence the democratic, Socialist and Communist Press. This was followed by the arrest of several thousand opponents of Nazism, and by public and popular demands for a revision of the Treaty of Versailles and for German rearmament.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“Seeking to encourage Collins, Churchill replied with his favourite Boer saying, ‘All will come right.’ On”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“At the same time, in an attempt to calm Arab fears, he approved a proposal from Samuel that Jewish immigration would henceforth be limited by the ‘economic capacity’ of Palestine to absorb the newcomers.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“The conference began on March 12. Among the experts were Lawrence, Cox and Gertrude Bell; for ten days they passed in review every aspect of the future of the Middle East. Economy was the goal, political stability the means.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“Churchill’s views on Zionism were well known. A year later, in an article in the Illustrated Sunday Herald, denouncing those Russian Jews who had taken a leading part in the imposition of Communist rule on Russia, he had called Zionism an ‘inspiring movement’, telling his readers, ‘If, as may well happen there should be created in our own lifetime, by the banks of the Jordan, a Jewish State under the protection of the British Crown, which might comprise three or four millions of Jews, an event will have occurred in the history of the world which would from every point of view be beneficial; and would be especially in harmony with the truest interests of the British Empire.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“It would be a ‘tour de force’ to do the two jobs, Clementine continued, ‘like keeping a lot of balls in the air at the same time. After all, you want to be a Statesman, not a juggler.’ Churchill had no intention of giving up his Air portfolio.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“If I had two lives I would be a soldier and a politician. But as there will be no war in my time I shall have to be a politician.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“so that his formal appointment, made on 9 January 1919, was that of Secretary of State for War and Air. He”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“for the first time in British history, gave votes to women; six million women gained the vote as a result of the new Act.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“Churchill was in his element; work and a clear plan.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“The war could not be won ‘unless we are supported by the great masses of the labouring classes of this country’.”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life

“Due settimane dopo, il 30 maggio [1904],[...] criticò apertamente il più controverso tra i nuovi provvedimenti legislativi discussi in parlamento, il disegno di legge sugli stranieri. Il provvedimento[...] si proponeva di ridurre drasticamente l'immigrazione ebraica dalla Russia alla Gran Bretagna.[...] Era contrario ad abbandonare «la vecchia pratica tollerante e generosa del libero ingresso e dell'asilo, che questo paese ha osservato per tanto tempo e di cui tanto ha beneficiato». Proseguì mettendoli in guardia sui pericoli di una legislazione di quel genere nelle mani di un ministro dell'Interno «intollerante e antisemita». Era preoccupato dall'effetto del provvedimento sul «semplice immigrante, sul profugo politico, sul debole e il povero»[...] definì la legge sugli stranieri un tentativo del governo di «compiacere un settore piccolo ma rumoroso dei loro sostenitori e di acquisire un po' di popolarità tra gli elettori trattando duramente numerosi stranieri sfortunati che non hanno diritto di voto». Il provvedimento era caro a «coloro che prediligono il patriottismo a spese degli altri e ammirano l'imperialismo del genere russo. Si spera che faccia leva sul pregiudizio gretto contro gli stranieri, sul pregiudizio razziale contro gli ebrei e sul pregiudizio della manodopera contro la concorrenza». - p. 104”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: La vita politica e privata

“would make ‘a fatal bargain’ if they allowed ‘the moral force which this country has so long exerted to become diminished, or perhaps even destroyed, for the sake of the costly, trumpery, dangerous military playthings”
― Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life