Category: Fake Quotes

nonsense
“Amazone.” She’s not Churchill’s yacht and he never owned one.
Churchill Nonsense, Parts #1462-64

Churchill Nonsense, Parts #1462-64

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Nonsense #1462: Yachts

The Irish nov­el­ist George Moore orig­i­nat­ed the tale that Sir Winston’s moth­er Jen­nie, Lady Ran­dolph Churchill, slept with 200 men. Assum­ing she did so, say, between ages 20 and 60, she aver­aged five per year, a ten-week aver­age affair (if she had them one at a time, with a cou­ple days’ break in between). Which is a lot of lovers to main­tain, giv­en the state of Vic­to­ri­an and Edwar­dian locomotion.

How­ev­er ridicu­lous, the claim stuck, and is reg­u­lar­ly trot­ted out and embell­ished on a medi­um poor Jen­nie nev­er antic­i­pat­ed: the Inter­net. It occurs so often because it’s so easy to rat­tle off, and pruri­ent enough to raise a website’s Google Ana­lyt­ics—nev­er mind whether it is even feasible.…

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Churchill on Horses

Churchill on Horses

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“We need a horse­man for our next pres­i­dent,” writes Gary Hodg­son in the Fort Mor­gan Times, who then goes on to quote “the famous rein­ing cham­pi­on, team rop­er and all around cowboy…Sir Win­ston Churchill,” who alleged­ly said: “There is some­thing about the out­side of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.”

Unless Mr. Hodg­son has found a new attri­bu­tion, that charmer is not Churchill’s. It’s list­ed in the “Red Her­rings” appen­dix in Churchill by Him­self, page 575, with this note:

​​Repeat­ed­ly attrib­uted to every­one from Woodrow Wilson’s physi­cian to Ronald Rea­gan. “Cler­gy­man Hen­ry Ward Beech­er (1813–87) is one per­son to whom the thought was attrib­uted in his time.…

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Churchill’s Average Voter

Churchill’s Average Voter

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(Or: “Churchillian Drift,” Part 1,398….)

On the eve of the British Gen­er­al Elec­tion, Metro UK declares: “Win­ston Churchill said the best argu­ment against democ­ra­cy is a five-minute con­ver­sa­tion with the aver­age voter.”

This is alas a reap­pear­ance of an ever-pop­u­lar red-her­ring quote that Churchill nev­er said.

Churchill had thought­ful cri­tiques of democ­ra­cy. See in par­tic­u­lar his essay on “Mass Effects in Mod­ern Life” in his book, Thoughts and Adven­tures. But he also had more respect for the aver­age vot­er than this non-quote sug­gests. In the House of Com­mons on 31 Octo­ber 1944 he said:

At the bot­tom of all the trib­utes paid to democ­ra­cy is the lit­tle man, walk­ing into the lit­tle booth, with a lit­tle pen­cil, mak­ing a lit­tle cross on a lit­tle bit of paper [we still vote that way in New Hampshire]—no amount of rhetoric or volu­mi­nous dis­cus­sion can pos­si­bly dimin­ish the over­whelm­ing impor­tance of that point.…

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Germany
Paris Peace Conference, 27 May 1919. L-R: Prime Minister David Lloyd George (Great Britain), Premier Vittorio Orlando (Italy), Premier Georges Clemenceau (France), President Woodrow Wilson (USA). Photo by Edward N. Jackson. (US Army Signal Corps)
“Squeeze Germany until the Pips Squeak”

“Squeeze Germany until the Pips Squeak”

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Writ­ing in the Ari­zona Repub­lic, Clay Thomp­son prop­er­ly cor­rects a read­er. It was not Churchill who coined the phrase, “we shall squeeze Ger­many until the pips squeak.” Mr. Thomp­son cor­rect­ly replied that the author was like­ly Sir Eric Camp­bell-Ged­des, First Lord of the Admi­ral­ty  in 1917-19. No soon­er had Ged­des uttered it than the line was ascribed to Prime Min­is­ter David Lloyd George. It worked well in the 1918 British gen­er­al elec­tion, which Lloyd George hand­i­ly won.

Lloyd George was per­son­al­ly not revenge-mind­ed. But as a politi­cian he was all too ready to adopt the pop­u­lar cry “Hang the Kaiser.”…

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drift
“I didn’t say that. I wish I had.” —WSC in old age. Above: Drifting into Trinidad, March 1961. Churchill, 87, visits the Governor’s residence, Port of Spain, during a cruise aboard the Onassis yacht Christina. Lower right: Dr. Eric Williams, who in August 1962 became the first prime minister of independent Trinidad and Tobago. (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchillian (or Yogi Berra) Drift: How Quotations are Invented

Churchillian (or Yogi Berra) Drift: How Quotations are Invented

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Drift it is….

Churchillian Drift is just the tick­et. I have been look­ing for a term to describe the numer­ous pot­ted, inac­cu­rate Churchill quotes. “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth puts its trousers on.” That is big right now on Twit­ter. “Suc­cess is not final, fail­ure is not fatal: it is the courage to con­tin­ue that counts.” Every­body uses that one repeatedly.

“If you’e going through hell, keep going.” No one knows who said that, but it wasn’t Churchill. Then there is: “If I were your hus­band, I’d drink it.”…

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Churchill on Taxes

Churchill on Taxes

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Espe­cial­ly nowa­days, politi­cians fre­quent­ly  quote Churchill as say­ing, “There is no such thing as a good tax.” Fas­tid­ioius search­es of his pub­lished words reveal no such state­ment; and here at least is proof that he con­sid­ered at least one tax a good one.

Per­haps the House may remem­ber that only sev­en or eight years ago I got into some trou­ble myself about the Kerosene Tax. It was a very good tax. I was quite right about it. My Rt. Hon. Friend [Neville Cham­ber­lain] slipped it through a year or two lat­er with­out the slight­est trou­ble and it nev­er ruined the homes of the peo­ple at all.…

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“An empty taxi arrived and Clement Attlee got out”

“An empty taxi arrived and Clement Attlee got out”

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Though it's all over the Internet, Churchill never said this about Clement Attlee, and quoting Churchill to this effect considerably misses his attitude toward political opponents. Queried about the remark, Churchill replied to the effect that Clement Attlee was an honorable and gallant gentleman and that he, Churchill, would deprecate any such remark.

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Romney
Mitt Romney (Image: AP)
A Romney Churchill Gaffe: A Small But Not a Large Clang

A Romney Churchill Gaffe: A Small But Not a Large Clang

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Romney redux

2011— Writ­ing for Busi­ness Insid­er on Sep­tem­ber 29th, Grace Wyler cor­rect­ly report­ed a Churchill mis­quote by pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Mitt Romney.

Defend­ing him­self from charges that he is a “flip-flop­per,” Rom­ney con­fused “the Brit every Repub­li­can loves with the Brit every Repub­li­can loves to hate.” Here accord­ing to NBC is what Gov­er­nor Rom­ney said:

In the pri­vate sec­tor, if you don’t change your view when the facts change, well you’ll get fired for being stub­born and stu­pid. Win­ston Churchill said, “When facts change, I change too, madam.”

Wyler accu­rate­ly notes that this was said by John May­nard Keynes, “the British econ­o­mist whose the­o­ries about gov­ern­ment inter­ven­tion in the econ­o­my [are] reviled by con­ser­v­a­tives every­where.”…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

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