Category: Quotations

Arts
Plaque placed before the PM’s seat at the conference table, Cabinet War Rooms, London. (Photo by the author)
Safeguarding the Arts: Churchill Quotes and Misquotes

Safeguarding the Arts: Churchill Quotes and Misquotes

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"The Arts are essential to any complete national life.... Ill fares the race which fails to salute the arts with the reverence and delight which are their due" (Churchill, April 1938). "No, bury them in caves and cellars. None must go. We are going to beat them" (Churchill, June 1940).

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Gettysburg
“The Treaty of Harper’s Ferry, which was signed between the Union and Confederate States on 6 September 1863, embodied the two fundamental propositions: that the South was independent, and the slaves were free.” —WSC, 1930
Fantasies: Trollope’s Brittanula, Churchill’s Battle of Gettysburg

Fantasies: Trollope’s Brittanula, Churchill’s Battle of Gettysburg

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1930: Kaiser Wilhelm II may today occupy "the most splendid situation in Europe." But "let him not forget that he might well have found himself eating the bitter bread of exile, a dethroned sovereign and a broken man loaded with unutterable reproach...if Lee had not won the Battle of Gettysburg."

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Martin
Jock Colville’s farewell to join the RAF, Downing Street garden, September 1941. Front row L-R: Colville, Churchill, John Martin, Tony Bevir. Back row L-R: Leslie Rowan, John Peck, Miss Watson, Commander “Tommy” Thompson, Charles Barker. (Detail from the dust jacket of Michael Jackson, “A Scottish Life,” 1999.)
Martin on Churchill: No One Left Without Feeling a Braver Man

Martin on Churchill: No One Left Without Feeling a Braver Man

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In May 1940 Stanley Bruce argued for a peace settlement with Hitler. Churchill struck out this paragraph, and wrote in the margin: “No.” Next, Bruce wrote that “the further shedding of blood and the continuance of hideous suffering is unnecessary.” Churchill wrote: “Rot."

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baths
Churchill’s habits (and the occasional experiences of his secretaries) were well known to the Nazis, who lampooned him in “Illustrerter Beobachter” for June 1941. Translation: “Take this down: In my current situation, I fear German U-boats even less than before.”
“Lousy”: Winston S. Churchill on Baths and Bathtubs

“Lousy”: Winston S. Churchill on Baths and Bathtubs

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"When Ministers of the Crown speak like this [there is] no need to wonder why they are getting increasingly into bad odour. I had even asked myself whether you, Mr. Speaker, would admit the word LOUSY as a Parliamentary expression in referring to the Administration, provided, of course, it was not intended in a contemptuous sense but purely as one of factual narration."

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crodociles
Crocodile analogies weren’t new to Churchill. In 1798 after the Battle of the Nile at Aboukir Bay, cartoonist James Gillray depicted Nelson (with a club of “British oak”) slaying “Revolutionary Crocodiles” colored with the French Tricolor. The original caption read: “The British hero cleansing the mouth of the Nile.” (Wikimedia Commons)
Crocodiles: Churchill’s Animal Analogies

Crocodiles: Churchill’s Animal Analogies

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"[The Bolshevik] crocodiles with master minds entered upon their responsibilities upon November 8 [1917]. Many tears and guttural purrings were employed in inditing the decree of peace.… But the Petrograd wireless stirred the ether in vain. The crocodiles listened attentively for the response; but there was only silence."

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evacuate
Operation Sea Lion invasion routes. (Italian Wikimedia Commons)
Would the Royal Family and Churchill Had Left if the Germans Invaded?

Would the Royal Family and Churchill Had Left if the Germans Invaded?

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“Would the Roy­al Fam­i­ly and Chrchill Evac­u­ate?” is excerpt­ed from an arti­cle for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the orig­i­nal text with end­notes, please click here.

Q: Evacuate the Royals?

I am argu­ing with a per­son in anoth­er forum that there was a plan in the Sec­ond World War to evac­u­ate Churchill and the Roy­al Fam­i­ly to Cana­da if the Nazis invad­ed.  I believe it was called Oper­a­tion Coates, but the ref­er­ence I found doesn’t men­tion Churchill.

Churchill doesn’t seem like the sort of per­son to evac­u­ate. At Sid­ney Street he was in the front line.…

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criticism
Plenty of criticism went around among these…. Churchill with his Chiefs of Staff, Anfa Villa, Casablanca, 14 January 1943. L-R: Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal, Admiral Sir Dudley Pound, WSC, General Sir Alan Brooke and Lord Louis Mountbatten. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Winston Churchill’s Rule of Criticism after the Fact

Winston Churchill’s Rule of Criticism after the Fact

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Churchill claimed he never criticized a policy later that he had not publicly criticized when it was first raised. True, he was often on both sides of issues, and could pick his criticisms accordingly. But he in time he usually arrived at the right conclusions.

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National Geographic
Churchill on Foreign Aliens: Did He Say, “Collar the Lot”?

Churchill on Foreign Aliens: Did He Say, “Collar the Lot”?

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"The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him judgement by his peers for an indefinite period, is in the highest degree odious….Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilisation." —WSC

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National Debt
Budget Day, 15 April 1929. The Chancellor of the Exchequer en route Parliament to present his fifth budget. His task: to reduce the £8 billion National Debt. L-R: Detective Walter Thompson; Parliamentary Private Secretary Bob Boothby; Winston, Clementine, Sarah and Randolph Churchill. (Crown copyright expired, public domain)
Churchill on the Annual Crisis of the National Debt

Churchill on the Annual Crisis of the National Debt

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"There are two ways in which a gigantic debt may be spread over new decades and future generations. There is the right and healthy way; and there is the wrong and morbid way. The wrong way is to fail to make the utmost provision for amortisation which prudence allows, to aggravate the burden of the debts by fresh borrowings, to live from hand to mouth and from year to year, and to exclaim with Louis XV: 'After me, the deluge!'” —WSC, 1927

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