Winston Churchill Quotes

“The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.”

“It is wonderful what great strides can be made when there is a resolute purpose behind them.”

“Excellence is… caring more than others think is wise; risking more than others think is safe; dreaming more than others think is practical; expecting more than others think is possible.”

“Those whose work and pleasure are one… are… Fortune’s favoured children.”

“It is no use doing what you like; you have got to like what you do.”

“Success is never final.”

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”

“Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.”

“One must never forget when misfortunes come that it is quite possible they are saving one from something much worse; or that when you make some great mistake, it may very easily serve you better than the best-advised decision.”

“The future is unknowable, but the past should give us hope.”

“To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real.”

“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”

“Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge.”

“No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.”

“I’d rather be right than consistent.”

“For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.”

“Every man should ask himself each day whether he is not too readily accepting negative solutions.”

“Sometimes it is not enough to do our best; we must do what is required.”

“It is no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”

“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.”

“Before he can move their tears his own must flow. To convince them he must himself believe.”

“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”

“You must look at facts, because they look at you.”

“Personally, I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.”

“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.”

“The most important thing about education is appetite.”

“There is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.”

“Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.”

“Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because it is the quality which guarantees all others.”

“To each, there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.”

“Play the game for more than you can afford to lose, only then will you learn the game.”

“You make all kinds of mistakes, but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.”

“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!”

“The first quality that is needed is audacity.”

“Have no fear of the future. Let us go forward into its mysteries, tear away the veils which hide it from our eyes, and move onwards with confidence and courage.”

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

“Criticism is easy; achievement is difficult.”

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to have changed often.”

“Success always demands a greater effort.”

“The price of greatness is responsibility.”

“All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.”

“A man does what he must, in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures, and that is the basis of all human morality.”

“There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right and not to fear to do or say what you believe to be right.”

“The shortest road to ruin is to emulate the methods of your adversary.”

“The true guide of life is to do what is right.”

“The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.”

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.”

“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body; it calls attention to the development of an unhealthy state of things. If it is heeded in time, danger may be averted; if it is suppressed, a fatal distemper may develop.”

“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.”

“I have benefited greatly from criticism, and at no time have I suffered a lack thereof.”