Quotes

Winston Churchill records his thoughts on moment the First World War ended. 

‘It was a few minutes before the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. I stood at the window of my room looking up Northumberland Avenue towards Trafalgar Square, waiting for Big Ben to tell that the War was over. My mind strayed back across the scarring years to the scene and emotions of the night at the Admiralty when I listened for these same chimes in order to give the signal of war against Germany to our Fleets and squadrons across the world. And now all was over! The unarmed and untrained island nation, who with no defence but its Navy had faced unquestioningly the strongest manifestation of military power in human record, had completed its task. Our country had emerged from the ordeal alive and safe, its vast possessions intact, its war effort still waxing, its institutions unshaken, its people and Empire united as never before. Victory had come after all the hazards and heartbreaks in an absolute and unlimited form. All the Kings and Emperors with whom we had warred were in flight or exile. All their Armies and Fleets were destroyed or subdued. In this Britain had borne a notable part, and done her best from first to last.

The minutes passed. I was conscious of reaction rather than elation. The material purposes on which one’s work had been centred, every process of thought on which one had lived, crumbled into nothing. The whole vast business of supply, the growing outputs, the careful hoards, the secret future plans—but yesterday the whole duty of life—all at a stroke vanished like a nightmare dream, leaving a void behind. My mind mechanically persisted in exploring the problems of demobilization. What was to happen to our three million Munition workers? What would they make now? How would the roaring factories be converted? How in fact are swords beaten into ploughshares? How long would it take to bring the Armies home? What would they do when they got home?…

‘I wish you could have seen her as she lay at rest—after all the sunshine and storm of life was over. Very beautiful and splendid she looked. Since the morning with its pangs, thirty years had fallen from her brow. She recalled to me the countenance I had admired as a child when she was in her heyday and the old brilliant world of the eighties and nineties seemed to come back.’

‘Chamberlain is a Birmingham town councillor who looks at our national affairs through the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe.’

‘In Lady Violet Bonham Carter we have not only a Liberal of unimpeachable loyalty to the Party, but one of the finest speakers in the country. Her speech against Socialism which was so widely read two months ago recalled the style of old and famous days.’

‘The television has come to take its place in the world; as a rather old-fashioned person I have not been one of its principal champions, but I don’t think it needs any champion. I think it can make its own way and I think it’s a wonderful thing indeed to think that every expression on my face at this moment may be viewed by millions of people throughout the United States. I hope that the raw material is as good as the methods of distribution.’

‘Sometimes when Fortune scowls most spitefully, she is preparing her most dazzling gifts.’

-Winston Churchill, 1931.

Japanese Surrender 14 August 1945

Winston Churchill, Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin at the Potsdam Conference the month before the Japanese surrender.

According to Sir Martin Gilbert in his epic Churchill biography here’s how the final days played out.

Churchill to Mrs John Leslie

12 November 1895
763 Fifth Avenue

Read a selection of Winston Churchill’s most famous quotes

“No One Would Do Such Things”

“So now the Admiralty wireless whispers through the ether to the tall masts of ships, and captains pace their decks absorbed in thought. It is nothing. It is less than nothing. It is too foolish, too fantastic to be thought of in the twentieth century. Or is it fire and murder leaping out of the darkness at our throats, torpedoes ripping the bellies of half-awakened ships, a sunrise on a vanished naval supremacy, and an island well-guarded hitherto, at last defenceless? No, it is nothing. No one would do such things. Civilization has climbed above such perils. The interdependence of nations in trade and traffic, the sense of public law, the Hague Convention, Liberal principles, the Labour Party, high finance, Christian charity, common sense have rendered such nightmares impossible. Are you quite sure? It would be a pity to be wrong. Such a mistake could only be made once—once for all.”

    —1923, recalling the possibility of war between France and Germany after the Agadir Crisis of 1911, in The World Crisis, vol. 1, 1911-1914, pp. 48-49.