Quotations Archives - Page 3 of 31 - Richard M. Langworth

Squandermania: Churchill on Debt Limits

15 September 2023 Comments 1 Comment

"The detailed methods of [Squandermania] have not yet been fully thought out, but we are assured on the highest authority that if only enough resource and energy are used there will be no difficulty in getting rid of the stuff. This is the policy which used to be stigmatised by as the policy of buying a biscuit early in the morning and walking about all day looking for a dog to give it to."

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rascals — “Who’s that damn fool on the grey?” Lt. Churchill, 4th Hussars, India, 1896. (Wikimedia Commons)

Divine Intervention: Taking Care of Winston

30 August 2023 Comments 1 Comment

Churchill's religion included the belief that God was preserving him for some higher purposes. Andrew Roberts notes that he had many narrow escapes: childhood illnesses, near-death from ruptured kidney, near-drowning in Lake Geneva. He survived close brushes fighting in five wars on five continents from 1897 to 1916. He was nearly killed by a car in New York, survived assassination plots and enemy aircraft. Lord Roberts adds: "Not without reason he believed that the Almighty's chief obligation was to watch over the life of Winston Churchill."

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Churchill Quotations: Youth, Maturity, Principle, Regulations

20 August 2023 Comments 0 Comments

"What is the use of Parliament if it is not the place where true statements can be brought before the people? What is the use of sending Members to the House of Commons who say just the popular things of the moment, and merely endeavour to give satisfaction by cheering loudly every Ministerial platitude? If Parliamentary democracy is to survive, it will not be because the Constituencies return tame, docile, subservient Members, and try to stamp out every form of independent judgment."

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Winston Churchill’s Revulsion over Napalm Bombing

25 July 2023 Comments 0 Comments

"My own feeling is that Napalm ought not to be used in the way it is being done by the American Forces. This is I am sure the overwhelming feeling of the House of Commons, but I do not take my opinion from them. I certainly could not agree to our taking any responsibility for it, otherwise than in the general duty of serving with and under the United Nations Commander. I do not see how Press articles and jabber of that kind compares with splashing about this burning fluid on the necks of humble people...."

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Wit and Wisdom: Fitzroy Maclean, 1911-1996

30 June 2023 Comments 2 Comments

"Today, looking back over a long life, I can honestly say that almost the only things in which I take any conscious pride or esteem in one way or another is my association with Winston Churchill. After the war I was lucky enough to be a member of his Government and also, with my wife, to be asked every now and then to Chequers or Chartwell to join him and his family in their noisy, affectionate, hilarious, often uproarious family life. That, as a friend said to me the other day, was something that left you both wiser and also warmer at heart." —Sir Fitzroy

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One Last Shining Moment: Churchill’s Paean to Beaverbrook

16 June 2023 Comments 0 Comments

"I was glad to be able sometimes to lean on him. He did not fail. This was his hour. Time has but added to the intensity of what I then felt, and to my regard and affection." —Sir Winston Churchill on the 85th birthday of Lord Beaverbrook, 25 May 1964.

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OMG — “Lord Fisher comes aboard.” Cartoon on Churchill’s reappointment of retired Admiral Fisher as First Sea Lord shortly after the start of the First World War. (Cartoon by F.H. Townsend in Punch, public domain)

OMG: Churchillian Origins of the Popular Texters’ Phrase

31 May 2023 Comments 0 Comments

Yes, credit OMG to Admiral Fisher. He had a flamboyant writing style, often signing his letters to Churchill, “Yours till a cinder” or "Yours till Hell freezes over." Many other other loquacious salutations made his lexicon of salubrious sign-offs. Given his sudden resignation and disappearance from the Admiralty in May 1915, they were rather less than sincere.

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Churchill Quotations: The Best Telegram He Ever Sent

15 May 2023 Comments 0 Comments

"I warned the Americans before Potsdam not to withdraw from any of the part of Germany we occupied until we had a satisfactory understanding. They would not listen. And they will not listen now when I warn them about Germany. At Potsdam I wanted Prussia isolated and Germany divided horizontally and not vertically." —Churchill according to Moran

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Tax — Young Winston haranguing the electors, Manchester, 1908. (Wikimedia Commons)

“A Nation Cannot Tax Itself into Prosperity”: Churchill’s Quote?

5 May 2023 Comments 0 Comments

Question: "Did Churchill say this? 'For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.' I can't find it in your 'Churchill by Himself.'" Answer: Indeed he did—and he liked that “bucket” gag so much that he used it at least five times. Someone with courage should pick it up again today.

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Churchill’s War Memoirs: Aside from the Story, Simply Great Writing

30 April 2023 Comments 1 Comment

"No other wartime leader in history has given us a work of two million words written only a few years after the events and filled with messages among world potentates which had so recently been heated and secret. The Memoirs are not just a unique revelation of the exercise of power from atop an empire in duress but also one of the fascinating products of the human spirit, both as an expression of a personality and as a somewhat anomalous epic tale filled with the depravities, miseries and glories of man." —Manfred Weidhorn

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