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.”…
Churchill (stepping naked from his bath): “The Prime Minister of Great Britain has nothing to hide from the President of the United States.” **
[Also quoted as: “You see, Mr. President, I have nothing to hide.”]
Churchill allegedly said this during his visit to the White House in December-January 1941. The Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and America was in the war. The encounter was confirmed by Churchill’s bodyguard, Walter Thompson, and one of his secretaries, Patrick Kinna. On the strength of their comments I included it as “likely” in Churchill By Himself.…
In a May 10th piece on the American Thinker website, author Robert Morrison asserts that a) President Obama is no Churchill; b) Hitler, who in 1940 was ready “to parachute 10,000 commandos on London,” was rather scarier than Osama bin Laden; c) Obama, who dislikes Churchill for the torture of his grandfather in Kenya, “tossed” the bust of Churchill from the Oval Office; and d) “spilt his guts” to the media about the OBL operation.
Quoting Churchill’s famous remark that when he became Prime Minister he felt as if he “were walking with destiny,” Morrison writes: “I want my president to have concerns, but not fears.…
HOUSE OF COMMONS, 22 OCTOBER 1947— “I am in entire accord with what the Prime Minister has said about Princess Elizabeth and about the qualities which she has already shown, to use his words, ‘of unerring graciousness and understanding and of human simplicity.’ He is indeed right in declaring that these are among the characteristics of the Royal House. I trust that everything that is appropriate will be done by His Majesty’s Government to mark this occasion of national rejoicing. ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,’ and millions will welcome this joyous event as a flash of colour on the hard road we have to travel.…
Churchill By Himself, p. 437: “The Middle East is one of the hardest-hearted areas in the world. It has always been fought over, and peace has only reigned when a major power has established firm influence and shown that it would maintain its will. 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.”…
“BILL’S BOOKS”
“What shall I do with all my books?” Churchill asked in Thoughts and Adventures. It is a question we should all ponder—while there is still time.
In the November 1st issue of National Review, Neal B. Freeman writes a touching and sensitive appreciation of the library of the late William F. Buckley, Jr.: an eclectic mix, from tomes on the harpsichord to biographies of Elvis Presley, from books inscribed to him to feverishly marked-up books relating to Buckley’s own writing, to the classics he admired. Because he had not thought to leave specific instructions, his library was broken up, scattered to the winds—and not everything in it reached an appreciative owner.…
“A few curmudgeons have flamboyantly abstained from joining in this birthday greeting; but they are so few that their action merely emphasises the fact that personal respect and friendship habitually survive and transcend political conflict in the Mother of Parliaments. It is particularly appropriate that these all-party tributes on his birthday should be paid to one, the outstanding fact of whose character and career is that he has never been happier than when leading men of all parties and men of no party in some great national cause. He has never ceased to combine zeal for reform with reverence for tradition.…
Churchill by Himself is different from all other Churchill quote books through “correctibility.” It offers a reference to each quotation, and a method by which corrections may be sent in, verified, and made available digitally to readers.
Producing any work as complicated as this is a constant running battle between conflicting sources, experts who disagree with each other, and inexorable deadlines. For instance, one expert offered corrections based on the 1974 Complete Speeches (not complete and scarcely free of errors) that contradict the texts of earlier volumes by Churchill himself—which to me take priority.…
