Category: Quotations

Fake Churchill Quotations: Democracy, Life, Living, Enemies

Fake Churchill Quotations: Democracy, Life, Living, Enemies

<> Among fake quotations, this one is famous. It was revived by broadcaster Trevor Phillips in The Times. Mr. Phillips was explaining that British Conservatives, almost certainly to be the Opposition after the next election, need to stand strong—particularly against themselves. No quarrel with his logic, only his attribution.

Read More Read More

Churchill Quotes: “Law Above the King” and “All Will Be Well”

Churchill Quotes: “Law Above the King” and “All Will Be Well”

"A law which is above the King" occurs in Churchill's "The Birth of Britain" (London: Cassell, 1956). He was explaining Magna Carta, the Great Charter of Freedoms, one of the towering benchmarks of Western Civilization. “All will be well” was a very frequent expression. In South Africa in 1899-1900, the young Winston had picked up the Afrikaans phrase "Alles sal regkom" or “All will come right.” He used both phrases interchangeably because they expressed his sentiment.

Read More Read More

Sir Martin Gilbert on Churchill and the Holocaust

Sir Martin Gilbert on Churchill and the Holocaust

Why so little of the Holocaust in Churchill's war memoirs? There were many reasons. Intelligence restrictions were still in place, war crimes trials were occurring. Churchill had an understandable reluctance to criticize American officials who had blocked his order to bomb the railway lines to Auschwitz. Churchill was never never one to open a quarrel with allies over the past. Also, as Lady Gilbert pointed out that it wasn't actually known as the Holocaust for years later.

Read More Read More

Winston Churchill’s Tests of Freedom: Then and Now

Winston Churchill’s Tests of Freedom: Then and Now

"These simple, practical tests, are some of the title-deeds on which a new Italy could be founded." Think of the years of experience, thought, and hard political lessons that went into those basic tenets. How Churchill expressed them in only 201 words, mostly of one or two syllables. How little they are thought of today, when we try to describe certain nations as free countries.

Read More Read More

Churchill and the Rhineland: “Terrible Circumstances”

Churchill and the Rhineland: “Terrible Circumstances”

Churchill would have backed French reoccupation of the Rhineland, but he soon gathered that the League of Nations was toothless. Churchill’s theme did not dramatically change in 1936; it merely evolved. As early as 1933 he had declared:  "Whatever way we turn there is risk. But the least risk and the greatest help will be found in re-creating the Concert of Europe." The failure of a concerted response over the Rhineland was to be repeated. Each time western statesmen hoped the latest Hitler inroad would be his last.

Read More Read More

Churchill’s Christmas, 1882-1947: Halcyon and Sterner Days

Churchill’s Christmas, 1882-1947: Halcyon and Sterner Days

At Christmas 1932, Churchill received as a present “a huge bottle of brandy, and decided to paint it, accompanied by lesser bottles," Johnnie Churchill remembered. "He sent us children scurrying around Chartwell to find them: 'Fetch me associate and fraternal bottles to form a bodyguard to this majestic container.'"

Read More Read More

Conant, Churchill, and the Harvard of 1943

Conant, Churchill, and the Harvard of 1943

James Conant was a liberal. He favored admitting women and minorities, and ultimately Harvard did. I don't think he welcomed anti-Semites, although undoubtedly they existed on his campus. He was, above all, devoted to the free exchange of ideas. "Free speech carries with it the evil of all foolish, unpleasant and venomous things that are said," as Churchill once remarked. "But on the whole we would rather lump them than do away with it."

Read More Read More

2012 Benghazi Consulate: “Sometimes History Rhymes”

2012 Benghazi Consulate: “Sometimes History Rhymes”

"The Middle East is one of the hardest-hearted areas in the world.... Your friends must be supported with every vigour and if necessary they must be avenged. Force, or perhaps force and bribery, are the only things that will be respected. It is very sad, but we had all better recognise it. At present our friendship is not valued, and our enmity is not feared." —WSC

Read More Read More

Trump’s “Vermin” Crack: Nothing New Except the Reaction

Trump’s “Vermin” Crack: Nothing New Except the Reaction

"We speak of the Minister of Health, but ought we not rather to say the Minister of Disease? For is not morbid hatred a form of mental disease, moral disease, and indeed a highly infectious form? Indeed, I can think of no better step to signalize the inauguration of the National Health Service than that a person who so obviously needs psychiatrical attention should be among the first of its patients." —Churchill on Bevan, 1948

Read More Read More

Irving Berlin, Isaiah Berlin: Churchill’s Mistaken Identity

Irving Berlin, Isaiah Berlin: Churchill’s Mistaken Identity

Enthralled by his accounts of American politics from the British Embassy in Washington, Churchill invited a "Mr. I. Berlin" to lunch. The invitee turned out to be Irving Berlin, not Isaiah, which produced a confusing dialogue around the table. ("Tell me, Mr. Berlin, what is your greatest work?" ... "White Christmas.") Later, meeting the real Isaiah Berlin, WSC acknowledged "the grave solipsism I was so unfortunate to have perpetrated."

Read More Read More

RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks

Links on this page may earn commissions.