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| Sir Winston Churchill
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.A joke is a very serious thing. A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. A love of tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril; but the new view must come, the world must roll forward. A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him. Advertising nourishes the consuming power of men. It sets up before a man the goal of a better home, better clothing, better food for himself and his family. It spurs individual exertion and greater production. Air power can either paralyze the enemy's military action or compel him to devote to the defense of his bases and communications a share of his straitened resources far greater that what we need in the attack. All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope. An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains. Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. Baldwin thought Europe was a bore, and Chamberlain thought it was only a greater Birmingham. Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat. Clement Attlee is a modest man who has a good deal to be modest about. Courage is the first of human qualities, because it is the quality which guarantees all others. Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. Death came very easily to her. She had lived such an innocent and loving life of service to others and held such a simple faith, that she had no fears at all and did not seem to mind very much. Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old. Eating words has never given me indigestion. Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put. Face adversity promptly and without flinching, and you will reduce its impact.For good or for ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept a subordinate rank. Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together. From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put. Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose. He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire. He is a modest little man who has a good deal to be modest about. History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place. I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence-which is a noble thing. I had no idea of the enormous and unquestionably helpful part that humbug plays in the social life of great peoples dwelling in a state of democratic freedom. I like a man who grins when he fights. If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons. If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another. If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future. If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile-driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous shock.In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet. In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right. It is a gaping wound, whenever one touches it and removes the bandages and plasters of daily life. It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time. It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time. It is a remarkable comment on our affairs that the former prime minister of a great sovereign state should thus be received as an honorary citizen of another. It may be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a stage in this story where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of annihilation. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts for a thousand years men will still say, This was their finest hour. Mr. Chamberlain loves the working man, he loves to see him work. My hand seemed arrested by a silent veto. My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me. My wife and I tried breakfast together, but we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked. Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. No comment is a splendid expression. I am using it again and again. No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye. No matter how enmeshed a commander becomes in the elaboration of his own thoughts, it is sometimes necessary to take the enemy into account. No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections. 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. One does not leave a convivial party before closing time. One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never! Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge. Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business. Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Say what you have to say and the first time you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending-sit down. Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon. Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiam. Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. The monarchy is so extraordinarily useful. When Britain wins a battle she shouts, God save the Queen; when she loses, she votes down the prime minister. The price of greatness is responsibility. The reason I write so much is that I don't waste my essence in bed.The Russians will try all the rooms in a house, enter those that are not locked, and when they come to one that cannot be broken into, they will withdraw and invite you to dine genially that same evening. The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it and ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true. There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you. There is no such thing as a good tax. Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war. Those whose work and pleasures are one are fortune's favorite children. To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day. Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it; ignorance may deride it; malice may distort it; but there it is.War is a catalouge of blunders. War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can. War is mainly a catalogue of blunders. We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glowworm.We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm. We have a lot of anxieties, and one cancels out another very often. We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give! We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills;we shall never surrender. When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home. When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened. When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise. When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite. When you took your seat I felt as if a woman had come into my bathroom and I had only the sponge to defend myself. Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed. Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse. Working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation. You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.[Clement Attlee is] a sheep in sheep's clothing. |
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