Category: Quotations

Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin entertaining the sailors aboard USS Arkansaas, 25 July 1944. (Wikimedia Commons)
Irving Berlin, Isaiah Berlin: Churchill’s Mistaken Identity

Irving Berlin, Isaiah Berlin: Churchill’s Mistaken Identity

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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."

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Romeo and Juliet
Production of the play “Romeo and Juliet” with Jane Cowl as Juliet and the cowering Nurse at right, 1923. (White Studio, public domain)
Churchill’s Shakespeare: Quoting “Romeo and Juliet”

Churchill’s Shakespeare: Quoting “Romeo and Juliet”

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Darrell Holley offers one citation from "Romeo and Juliet." In his biography of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir Winston writes: “Would he, under the many riddles the future had reserved for such as he, snapped the tie of sentiment that bound him to his party, resolved at last to ‘shake the yoke of inauspicious stars’….?” As so often in that better-read age, Churchill didn’t bother to cite the source, assuming most of his readers would know the source.

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Thucydides
The History of the Peloponnesian War, translated from Thucydides, by William Smith, Rector of Holy Trinity, Chester, and Chaplain to The Earl of Derby. London: John Watts, 1753. (Wikimedia Commons)
Winston Churchill and Thucydides

Winston Churchill and Thucydides

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"Open no more negotiations with Sparta. Show them plainly that you are not crushed by your present afflictions. They who face calamity without wincing, and who offer the most energetic resistance, these, be they States or individuals, are the truest heroes." —Lord Beaverbrook's advice to Churchill, quoting Thucydides, 1942.

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Stories
“Eliza warned Uncle Tom of his peril, and, seizing her child, plunged out into the night.” —Churchill retelling “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” (Lithograph from the 1852 first edition, public domain)
“The World’s Great Stories” Retold by Winston Churchill

“The World’s Great Stories” Retold by Winston Churchill

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Why would Churchill wish to retell such classics as "Uncle Tom’s Cabin," "The Count of Monte Cristo," "Don Quixote," or "A Tale of Two Cities"? Because he was paid well to do so. Never independently wealthy, he worked hard to maintain his luxurious lifestyle—and the heavy entertainment and travel overhead of an active political career. “I earned my livelihood by dictating articles which had a wide circulation not only in Great Britain and the United States,” he wrote, “but also, before Hitler's shadow fell upon them, in the most famous newspapers of 16 European countries. I lived in fact from mouth to hand.”

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Humber
A new, owner-driver Imperial came out just before Churchill died. Rootes’ London showrooms placed a photo and floral “V” near their display model. WSC never rode in one of these, of course. (But I owned one! A lovely old baroche.)
Cars & Churchill: Blood, Sweat & Gears (3): Humber…

Cars & Churchill: Blood, Sweat & Gears (3): Humber…

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Churchill’s staff remembered the sense of urgency so characteristic of the man. In the old Humber, “Murray, the detective, would sit at [the chauffeur’s] side, quietly murmuring, ‘slow down here’ or ‘pull in to the left a little more,’” wrote Roy Howells, a male nurse. “At the back Sir Winston would be…tapping on the glass partition and calling out, ‘Go on!’ Whenever he felt Bullock was slow in overtaking he would lean forward and bellow, ‘Now!’ It does Bullock great credit that he never really took the chances his passenger would have liked….”

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Kilkenny
“They raised such a gust, Of yowls growls smoke and dust….” The Kilkenny cats in the middle of their fight, from the mock heroic poem by Alexander Mack, 1824. (Illustration by David Claypoole Johnston, Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill. the Kilkenny Cats, and the U.S. Congress

Churchill. the Kilkenny Cats, and the U.S. Congress

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"Indeed, the more we force ourselves to picture the hideous course of a modern naval engagement, the more one is inclined to believe that it will resemble the contest between Mamilius and Herminius at the Battle of Lake Regillus, or the still more homely conflict of the Kilkenny cats." —Churchill, 1912

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Netanyahu
Too many of all faiths have died there already. Winston Churchill with Bishop MacInnes of Jerusalem at a memorial service in the Military Cemetery on Mt. Scopus, northeast Jerusalem, 26 March 1921. (Library of Congress, public domain)
“Jarring Gong”: Benjamin Netanyahu on Winston Churchill

“Jarring Gong”: Benjamin Netanyahu on Winston Churchill

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"The nature of man has remained hitherto practically unchanged. Under sufficient stress—starvation, terror, warlike passion, or even cold intellectual frenzy—the modern man we know so well will do the most terrible deeds, and his modern woman will back him up.... We have the spectacle of the powers and weapons of man far outstripping the march of his intelligence; we have the march of his intelligence proceeding far more rapidly than the development of his nobility." —Winston S. Churchill, 1931

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together
“All in it together” was his message then: Churchill welcomed by President Truman at Washington National Airport aboard the President’s plane “The Independence,” 5 January 1952. (Photo by Abbie Rowe, Truman Library, public domain)
Winston Churchill’s Phrase “We are all in it together”

Winston Churchill’s Phrase “We are all in it together”

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Togetherness—united purpose and action among free peoples—was Churchill's theme all his life. A more common riff, used at least fifteen times, as "Let us go forward together." He applied that one in venues grand and minor, from the House of Commons to a conversation with his poodle Rufus.

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debt
“His Surplus-Fours” WSC as Chancellor had balanced the budget through higher taxes. (Poy in the Daily Mail, 27 March 1928)
Squandermania: Churchill on Debt Limits

Squandermania: Churchill on Debt Limits

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"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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Wind
Gable and Leigh in the charity ball scene: a 1939 lithograph for the original film release. (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill, Leslie Howard, Vivien Leigh and “Gone With the Wind”

Churchill, Leslie Howard, Vivien Leigh and “Gone With the Wind”

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Q: Did Churchill read Gone With the Wind?

“I am a long­time Gone With the Wind col­lec­tor and researcher, and give pre­sen­ta­tions at GWtW events. I’ve also been the GWtW Answer Lady on sev­er­al web­sites. Some asked: Did Churchill and Roo­sevelt read Gone With the Wind? It seems that FDR read quite a bit of the nov­el, but I couldn’t come up with any­thing about Churchill.

“I hope you don’t mind me toss­ing you this ques­tion. I assume that Churchill did see the film, as FDR did, on 26 Decem­ber 1939, after it opened in Wash­ing­ton.…

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