Quotes

In politics when you are in doubt what to do, do nothing … when you are in doubt what to say, say what you really think.

Churchill, 26 July 1905, North-West Manchester (cited in Langworth, Churchill: In His Own Words)

Danger gathers upon our path. We cannot afford – we have no right – to look back. We must look forward

Winston Churchill, 10 December 1936

One would have thought that if there was one cause in the world which the Conservative party would have hastened to defend, it would be the cause of the British Empire in India … Our fight is hard. It will also be long … But win or lose, we must do our duty. If the British people are to lose their Indian Empire, they shall do so with their eyes open.

Churchill, 18 March 1931

Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain amount of ingenuity to re-rat.

Sir John Colville’s diary, The Fringes of Power, paraphrases this well-known phrase of Churchill’s, which may, in fact, be manufactured since no direct attribution can be found, but Richard M. cited in Langworth, editor of Churchill: In His Own Words, feels that ‘re-rat’ has been mentioned by too many sources to doubt that Churchill coined it.

It may seem strange that a great advance in the world in industry, in controls of all kinds, should be made in time of war … War has taught us to make these vast strides forward towards a far more complete equalisation of the parts to be played by men and women in society.

Churchill, 29 September 1943, Royal Albert Hall, London

 

Do not turn the superior eye of critical passivity upon these efforts …. We must not be ambitious. We cannot aspire to masterpieces. We may content ourselves with a joy ride in a paint-box.

Churchill, Painting as a Pastime

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

Attributed to Winston Churchill (cited in Langworth, Churchill: In His Own Words)

Unteachable from infancy to tomb — There is the first and main characteristic of mankind.

Churchill, 21 May 1928 (cited in Langworth, Churchill: In His Own Words)

I have consistently urged my friends to abstain from reading it.

Churchill, My Early Life, writing about his only novel Savrola