These quotes make for good storytelling but popular myth has falsely attributed them to Winston Churchill
Conservative by the Time You’re 35
‘If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.’
There is no record of anyone hearing Churchill say this. Paul Addison of Edinburgh University made this comment: ‘Surely Churchill can’t have used the words attributed to him. He’d been a Conservative at 15 and a Liberal at 35! And would he have talked so disrespectfully of Clemmie, who is generally thought to have been a lifelong Liberal?’
Courage
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
This quote is very often attributed to Churchill but appears nowhere in the Churchill canon.
Cross of Lorraine
“The hardest cross I have to bear is the Cross of Lorraine.”
This remark about the intractable Charles de Gaulle was actually made by General Spears, Churchill’s envoy to France.
Going Through Hell
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
We haven’t seen any correct attribution of this quote that appears frequently on the Internet and printed on motivation posters. It’s not a phrase that is contained anywhere in the canon of Winston Churchill’s written or spoken words.
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