Category: Quotations

suffrage
WSC addressing suffragists, Dundee, 1909.
Churchill, Women’s Suffrage and “Black Friday,” November 1910

Churchill, Women’s Suffrage and “Black Friday,” November 1910

“Churchill, Suf­frage and Black Fri­day”: excerpt­ed from my arti­cle for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the full text, includ­ing Churchill’s let­ters to the head of the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police (22 Novem­ber 1910) and to Prime Min­is­ter Asquith (21 Decem­ber 1911), click here.

A Lon­don Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent writes for help with his dis­ser­ta­tion. Its top­ic is the rela­tion­ship between Home Sec­re­tary Win­ston Churchill, the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Police, and their han­dling of women’s suf­frage demon­stra­tors in Novem­ber 1910. His ques­tions illus­trate Churchill’s domes­tic states­man­ship. Our answers refute the belief that Churchill stri­dent­ly opposed women’s suf­frage except on iso­lat­ed occa­sions in polit­i­cal tactics.…

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Wilson
Harold Wilson and Aneurin Bevan around the time of their resignation. (History Today)
Hillsdale’s Churchill Documents: Harold Wilson, 1951

Hillsdale’s Churchill Documents: Harold Wilson, 1951

“Two days ear­li­er I had been a Min­is­ter of the Crown, red box and all. Now I was reduced to the posi­tion of a mes­sen­ger between my wife and Win­ston Churchill, each of whom burst into tears on receipt of a mes­sage from the oth­er.” —Harold Wilson 

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The Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project is rapid­ly com­plet­ing final vol­umes of Win­ston S. Churchill, the offi­cial biog­ra­phy. (The name is some­what of a mis­nomer; no one has ever cen­sored any mate­r­i­al.) Suit­ably, all thir­ty-one vol­umes will be com­plete by June 2019: the 75th Anniver­sary of D-Day. It will be fifty-six years since Ran­dolph Churchill and his “Young Gen­tle­men” includ­ing Mar­tin Gilbert began their work.…

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polo
Winston Churchill and Polo, Part 1, by Barbara Langworth

Winston Churchill and Polo, Part 1, by Barbara Langworth

“Win­ston Churchill and Polo” was first pub­lished in 1991. It is now updat­ed and amend­ed, thanks to the rich store of mate­r­i­al avail­able in The Churchill Doc­u­ments pub­lished by Hills­dale Col­lege Press. This arti­cle is abridged with­out foot­notes from the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the com­plete text and foot­notes, click here.

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Churchill loved polo, which he called “The Emper­or of Games.” A con­tem­po­rary writer’s descrip­tion of his polo tac­tics is remind­ful of much else in the statesmen’s approach to life and politics:

He rides in the game like heavy cav­al­ry get­ting into posi­tion for the assault.…

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poker
Around this table, Harry and Winston played poker, March 1946. Dining car of the “Ferdinand Magellan,” President Truman’s special railcar. (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill, Truman and Poker on the Train to Fulton, March 1946

Churchill, Truman and Poker on the Train to Fulton, March 1946

How Harry fleeced Winston at poker, and the PM wished to be born again…

The Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project is clos­ing in on fin­ish­ing Win­ston S. Churchill, the offi­cial biog­ra­phy. At thir­ty-one vol­umes, it is the longest on record and will have tak­en fifty-six years to com­plete. It is an hon­or to be part of the team now review­ing proofs for the penul­ti­mate doc­u­ment (com­pan­ion) vol­ume. This runs from August 1945, after Churchill was turned out of office, through Sep­tem­ber 1951, when he was about to regain it. The last vol­ume (1951-65) will be pub­lished next year, with suit­able celebrations.…

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Israel
HRH Prince William disembarks at Ben Gurion International Airport, 25 June 2018. (Reuters/Amir Cohen)
How Winston Churchill Preserved the Dream of Israel: July, 1922

How Winston Churchill Preserved the Dream of Israel: July, 1922

The Dream of Israel : An ear­li­er ver­sion of this arti­cle appeared in The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor on June 30th. There were some inter­est­ing com­ments. Click the link to read. 

Here­in, some edits of the edits, which diverged slight­ly from the draft. The pub­lished sub­ti­tle was, “Here’s bet­ting he would have loved America’s new embassy.” (Nev­er bet on what Churchill might love or not love.) It’s worth not­ing that the U.S. Embassy is in West Jerusalem. In a set­tle­ment, there could also be an Arab seat of gov­ern­ment in East Jerusalem. RML

Britain and Israel

Prince William land­ed in Israel June 25th for the first roy­al vis­it to the coun­try.…

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escape
The escaped desperado: Durban, Natal, 1908.
“A Sun that Never Sets”: Churchill’s Autobiography, “My Early Life”

“A Sun that Never Sets”: Churchill’s Autobiography, “My Early Life”

Win­ston S. Churchill, My Ear­ly Life: A Rov­ing Com­mis­sion. (Lon­don: Thorn­ton But­ter­worth, 1930; New York: Scrib­n­ers, 1930.) Numer­ous reprints and edi­tions since, includ­ing e-books. Excerpt­ed from the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the full arti­cle, click here.

Connoisseur’s Guide

My Ear­ly Life appeared a year before the last vol­ume of The World Cri­sis. The sub­ti­tle, “A Rov­ing Com­mis­sion,” is from the first chap­ter of Churchill’s Ian Hamilton’s March. It seems he took it from an ear­li­er nov­el by G.A. Hen­ty, one of his favorite authors. The titles changed places in the first Amer­i­can edition.

A won­der­ful treat is in store in this most approach­able of Churchill’s books. …

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Quixote
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza (er, I mean Roosevelt and Churchill) at Casablanca, January 1943. (Life)
Roosevelt and Churchill: Don Quixote and Sancho Panza?

Roosevelt and Churchill: Don Quixote and Sancho Panza?

A col­league asks whether Win­ston and Clemen­tine Churchill’s pri­vate name for  Pres­i­dent Roo­sevelt was “Don Quixote.” Also, who com­pared Roo­sevelt and Churchill to Don Quixote and San­cho Pan­za? This offers an inter­est­ing trawl through the sources.

So far as I can learn, the Quixote – Pan­za anal­o­gy for Roo­sevelt and Churchill (also FDR and his devot­ed advis­er Har­ry Hop­kins) occurred only dur­ing the 1943 Casablan­ca Con­fer­ence (SYMBOL). Roo­sevelt pro­posed those code names, and I rather think Churchill had dif­fer­ent image of them than FDR. (Oxford Eng­lish Dic­tio­nary: “Quixote: Enthu­si­as­tic vision­ary, pur­suer of lofty but imprac­ti­ca­ble ideals.”)…

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music
Churchill’s daughter Lady Soames (green dress) at Harrow Songs. (Harrow School)
The Music Winston Churchill Loved (with audio links)

The Music Winston Churchill Loved (with audio links)

Don Cusic, Win­ston Churchill’s Love of Music: Churchill Didn’t Have a Tin Ear (Nashville: Brack­ish Pub­lish­ing, 2018), 122 pages, $21. Audio links can eas­i­ly be pro­vid­ed online. Excerpt­ed from a review for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the full review, click here.

Music by Cusic

Cusic’s text traces Churchill’s life and career, track­ing every ref­er­ence the author found to music and song. We range from the march­es, dit­ties and Gilbert & Sul­li­van Churchill loved to the pow­er­ful­ly inspi­ra­tional. Which lyrics are pre­sent­ed is pure­ly arbi­trary, but once cho­sen, we get every word. Churchill’s youth­ful encoun­ters with the ’cel­lo and piano are duly not­ed.…

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baseba;;
“Managed by Churchill”: The 1935 Bismarck, North Dakota team, manager Neil Churchill front and center. Future Hall of Fame pitching great Satchel Paige is standing behind him. Bismarck broke baseball’s color barrier twelve years before Jackie Robinson did it with Brooklyn in the major leagues. Sir Winston, who deplored segregation in the U.S. Army during World War II, would have approved. (National Public Radio)
Sir Winston Churchill spoke about baseball? Yes, that too…

Sir Winston Churchill spoke about baseball? Yes, that too…

A cor­re­spon­dent and fel­low devo­tee of the game asks if Sir Win­ston had any­thing to say about Amer­i­can base­ball. Out of fif­teen mil­lion words over nine­ty years? Of course he did!

It may seem odd, since base­ball is not an Eng­lish sport, and its clos­est coun­ter­part over there is rounders. But—ever obe­di­ent to the whims of Churchillians—I offer what he had to say on the matter.

The inter­est­ing pho­to above accom­pa­nied a nice arti­cle, “Churchill on Base­ball,” by Christo­pher Schwarz, which I pub­lished  a few years ago in Finest Hour 163. I sup­plied the fol­low­ing Churchill quotes as a side­bar to Mr.…

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Blood
Churchill’s famous phrase began its long evolution when he was captured during the Boer War in 1899. (WSC is at right.)
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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Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks


Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

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