Month: April 2018

Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: Origins of a Famous Phrase

Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: Origins of a Famous Phrase

Though he gave per­ma­nent life to blood, toil, tears and sweat, Churchill’s best-remem­bered words did not orig­i­nate with him. Sim­i­lar expres­sions date very far back. (Excerpt­ed from my essay for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. To read the full arti­cle, click here.)

Quo­ta­tions schol­ar Ralph Keyes writes:

Cicero and Livy wrote of  “sweat and blood.” A 1611 John Donne poem includ­ed the lines “That ‘tis in vaine to dew, or mol­li­fie / It with thy Tear­es, or Sweat, or Bloud.” More than two cen­turies lat­er, Byron wrote, “Year after year they vot­ed cent per cent / Blood, sweat, and tear-wrung millions—why?—for…

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How Churchill Saw the Future: Prescient Essays, 1924-1931

How Churchill Saw the Future: Prescient Essays, 1924-1931

Future Shock

In four essays in his 1932 book Thoughts and Adven­tures (tak­en from ear­li­er writ­ings), Churchill con­tem­plat­ed the future. He iden­ti­fied future trends which would affect the evo­lu­tion of democ­ra­cy, con­sti­tu­tion­al gov­ern­ment, and the evo­lu­tion of soci­ety. Those essays were remark­ably pre­scient. More­over, they offer reflec­tions upon issues as promi­nent today as they were eight decades ago. Excerpt­ed from the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. To read the com­plete arti­cle click here.

“The rel­e­vance of the life of Win­ston Churchill to our time is appar­ent in the news­pa­per any day,” writes Hills­dale Col­lege Pres­i­dent Dr.…

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Baseball 2018: But Some of Us Still Remember When….

Baseball 2018: But Some of Us Still Remember When….

“Remem­ber When” was first pub­lished in The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor, 18 April 2018.

On the first day of April, a spoof flashed around social media. In hon­or of East­er, all thir­ty Major League Base­ball teams would be wear­ing jer­seys in East­er egg pas­tel col­ors. April Fool! The day dawned, and the teams all wore their nor­mal uni­forms. The cul­prit, Chris Cream­er of SportsLogos.net, said it was all in fun.

Chris’s joke gained cre­dence thanks to MLB’s habit of com­mem­o­rat­ing every­thing from pet dogs to “our troops.” (“Pups in the Park,” who’s gonna clean up that mess?…

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Introduction to “The Dream”: Churchill’s Haunting Short Story

Introduction to “The Dream”: Churchill’s Haunting Short Story

The Dream is repub­lished (from Nev­er Despair 1945-1965, Vol­ume 8 of the offi­cial biog­ra­phy) by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. To read it in its entire­ty, click here.

The Dream…

… is the most mys­te­ri­ous and ethe­re­al sto­ry Win­ston Churchill ever wrote. Yet the more we know about him, the bet­ter we may under­stand how he came to write it.

Replete with broad-sweep Churchillian nar­ra­tive, The Dream con­tains many ref­er­ences to now-obscure peo­ple, places and things. The new online ver­sion pub­lished by Hills­dale pro­vides links to all of them. You need only click on any unfa­mil­iar name or term for links to online ref­er­ences.…

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