There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.

It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic.

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. Antiquated War Offices, weak, incompetent, or arrogant Commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant Fortune, ugly surprises, awful miscalculations — all take their seats at the Council Board on the morrow of a declaration of war.

We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.

When I am abroad I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the Government of my country. I make up for lost time when I am at home.

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile — hoping it will eat him last.

One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'.

Broadly speaking, short words are best, and the old words, when short, are best of all.

The Government simply cannot make up their mind, or they cannot get the Prime Minister to make up his mind. So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent.

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.

In former days, when wars arose from individual causes, from the policy of a Minister or the passion of a King, when they were fought by small regular armies of professional soldiers, and when their course was retarded by the difficulties of communication and supply, and often suspended by the winter season, it was possible to limit the liabilities of the combatants. But now, when mighty populations are impelled on each other, each individual severally embittered and inflamed—when the resources of science and civilisation sweep away everything that might mitigate their fury, a European war can only end in the ruin of the vanquished and the scarcely less fatal commercial dislocation and exhaustion of the conquerors. Democracy is more vindictive than Cabinets. The wars of peoples will be more terrible than those of kings.

I decline utterly to be impartial as between the fire brigade and the fire.

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

War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.

I had a feeling once about Mathematics, that I saw it all—Depth beyond depth was revealed to me—the Byss and the Abyss. I saw, as one might see the transit of Venus—or even the Lord Mayor's Show, a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly how it happened and why the tergiversation was inevitable: and how the one step involved all the others. It was like politics. But it was after dinner and I let it go!

If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy.

We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glow-worm.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

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

If you're going through hell, keep going.

The forces of progress clash with those of reaction.

WINSTON CHURCHILL, The Story of the Malakand Field Force

We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.

I am going to tell you something you must not tell to any human being. We have split the atom. The report of the great experiment has just come in. A bomb was let off in some wild spot in New Mexico. It was only a thirteen-pound bomb, but it made a crater half a mile across. People ten miles away lay with their feet towards the bomb; when it went off they rolled over and tried to look at the sky. But even with the darkest glasses it was impossible. It was the middle of the night, but it was as if seven suns had lit the earth; two hundred miles away the light could be seen. The bomb sent up smoke into the stratosphere... It is the Second Coming. The secret has been wrested from nature.

Always remember, however sure you are that you could easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance.

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

WINSTON CHURCHILL, Young Statesman

The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.

WINSTON CHURCHILL, attributed, In The Highest Degree Odious: Detention Without Trial in Wartime Britain

The price of greatness is responsibility.

WINSTON CHURCHILL, speech at Harvard University, September 6, 1943

Nuclear energy is incomparably greater than the molecular energy which we use today.... What is lacking is the match to set the bonfire alight.

WINSTON CHURCHILL, Thoughts and Adventures

Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.

WINSTON CHURCHILL, letter to Home Secretary Herbert Morrison, November 21, 1943

Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonour. They chose dishonour. They will have war.