A new Phrase Index of Churchill quotes is part of a expanded new fifth edition of my quotations book, Churchill by Himself: In His Own Words.

Published by Hillsdale College Press, the new edition will carry a brand new title in keeping with its far greater content. Earlier editions contained 3500 entries; they now total over 5000. Many new ones derive from The Churchill Documents from 1942 to 1965, also published by Hillsdale. The preliminary proofs total 736 pages, without the indexes. We expect about 800 pages, some 150 more than before. More comprehensive than ever, the indexes are the work of award-winning indexer Do Mi Stauber.

The popular Phrase Index was introduced with the third edition, Churchill in His Own Words, in 2011. The idea was to assist readers in locating famous (and not so famous) quips and quotes that are not indexed by their best-known words. For example, “Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat” is in Chapter I, “Immortal Words,” but the Phrase Index speeds the reader to its page by indexing it under the “Bs.”

Previous Phrase Index still available

The 2011 Phrase Index was a great asset in quickly finding the quotation readers require. Aside from obvious lines from the great war speeches, it contains some 500 famous and obscure Churchill phrases. They range alphabetically from “Abdullah is in Transjordania where I put him” to “Zionism, my heart is full of sympathy for….”

The pagination of the third edition did not change. (We found only one quote which had to be removed as fictitious.) So the current, Third Edition Phrase Index can also be used with earlier editions entitled Churchill By Himself. For a copy please contact me.

The index also doubles as a handy quick exposure to Churchill’s humor and wisdom. Browse through the entries and you’re sure to find some that are either familiar enough, or intriguing enough, that you’ll want to look up the exact words, date and place.

If, even with this tool, you still can’t find what you are looking for, please contact me.

“Red Herrings”

The most popular appendix, famous quotations Churchill never said, is likewise expanded in the new volume. However, I keep it up to date in four parts on this website. There are over 200 now. You will find Part 1 here.

“The Biblical Churchill”

Adding the fifteen-page Phrase Index to Churchill By Himself in 2011 meant deleting something, since we wanted to retain the pagination. So we deleted a previous Appendix, “The Biblical Churchill.”

“The Biblical Churchill” will return as an appendix in the new expanded edition, along with several other new appendices. Meanwhile, the complete text is available in three parts:

1: “His Largest Single Source of Quotations.”

2: “A House of Many Mansions.”

3: “Be Ye Men of Valour.”

Another new appendix is “Hearsay Doesn’t Count: Churchill’s Racist Epithets are Extremely Rare.” As in its appearance in the Hillsdale publication Grand Alliance, this essay will be fully footnoted.

On Democracy:

<<The best argument against Democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.>>

Deseret News in Salt Lake City, Utah was a recent publisher of this red herring. The line is commonly attributed to Churchill, but with no authority. It is not quite as cynical as Winston Churchill could be—but not about Democracy.

Though he sometimes despaired of Democracy’s slowness to act for its own preservation, Churchill had a  more positive attitude towards the average voter. On 31 October 1944, for example, he told the House of Commons:

 At the bottom of all the tributes paid to Democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper—no amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point. —Churchill By Himself, page 100.

This is a favorite of Dr. Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College. The question arises whether the little man (by which Churchill meant to include women) is still alone in his little booth, or receiving input by others, sometimes weeks before Election Day. If so, that diminishes Democracy

Living and Life

Next to Democracy and “success” quotations, one of the most popular Churchill red herrings that bedizen the Internet is:

<<You make a living by what you get; you make a life by what you give.>>

This crops up in several poorly researched quote books and was taken up in a TV ad by Lockheed Martin. No one ever lists a Churchill attribution, because there is none. The words cannot be tracked to Churchill and have been put in his mouth to make them more interesting.

Enemies

<<The opposition occupies the benches in front of you, but the enemy sits behind you.>>

Among quotations on political enemies, this is famous. It was just revived by writer and broadcaster Trevor Phillips in The Times. Mr. Phillips was explaining that British Conservatives, almost certain to be the Opposition after the next election, need to stand strong—particularly against themselves. I have no quarrel with his logic, only his attribution.

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And then there is this well-known golden oldie….

<<You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.>>

It’s nothing Churchill ever said, but the admirable Quoteinvestigator.com tracks something similar to Victor Hugo. “You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea.”

Further reading

“All the Quotes Churchill Never Said,” beginning with Part 1, 2023.

“Democracy is the Worst Form of Government, Except For all the Others,” 2022.

I am  completing an English assignment which looks at the speeches of Winston Churchill and would like to read press conferences or interviews Churchill gave during the Second World War. So far, I have been able to find only speeches. Please could you advise me whether any such interviews are in existence? —E.L.

Washington, 1941

Churchill rarely gave interviews—only two that I know of as a young man, and those reluctantly. Speeches (live) were his preference. However, on his 1941 visit to Washington, Franklin Roosevelt ushered him into his first press conference. It was just a few weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the press had some fairly urgent questions. Churchill acquitted himself well.

It was the afternoon of December 23rd. Together, Churchill and Roosevelt met about 200 journalists and broadcasters in the President’s executive office. Churchill, seated in the back of the room, could not be seen very well by the crowd of reporters. When the President introduced him, he suggested that the Prime Minister stand to give his audience a better view. When Churchill climbed on his chair to be seen better, “loud and spontaneous cheers and applause rang through the room.”

Although Churchill had some difficulty hearing, his wit charmed everyone. Asked how long he thought it would take to win the war, he quipped, “If we manage it well, it will only take half as long as if we manage it badly.”

A southern reporter if he considered United States entry into the Second World War one of its “great climacterics.” Churchill grinned and answered in his best Texan drawl: “I sho’ do.” Newsweek reported that the “lusty cheers” were the first in the annals of presidential press conferences.

The transcript of this press meeting exists in Newsweek for 5 January 1942, page 23. See also the Complete Presidential Press Conferences of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Vol. 18, No. 794, 23 December 1941 (New York: Da Capo Press, 1972), pp. 382-92.

Quebec, 1942

Churchill easily adapted to the concept of press conferences, which seem to have been an American invention.  Another press conference was held in Quebec, after the 1944 conference. A Canadian reporter asked a tricky leading question: “What do you think of the United States?” Churchill responded: “Toilet paper too thin, newspapers too fat.” (Churchill by Himself, page 116.)

Washington, 1952

After the war he got into another press conference when visiting Washington in January 1952. On arrival, a woman who managed to corner him asked: “Doesn’t it thrill you to know that every time you make a speech the hall is packed to overflowing?” Churchill responded: “It is quite flattering, but whenever I feel this way I always remember that if instead of making a political speech I were being hanged, the crowd would be twice as big.” (Churchill by Himself, 552.)

It would be fair to conclude that on the rare occasions when he found himself surrounded by reporters, he would resort to humor, rather than make any weighty pronouncements.

Reprised below are my small contributions on Churchill and the great Irish statesman and thinker Edmund Burke (1729-1797). It was eclipsed in 2019 in a brilliant speech by Andrew Roberts which the Hillsdale College Churchill Project offers here. Dr. Roberts spoke after receiving The New Criterion 7th Edmund Burke Award for Service to Culture and Society. He also discusses Churchill on Burke in a video interview with James Panero.

2. Churchill on Burke

A reader writes:

I’d like to congratulate you on Churchill by Himself, but I could not find any Churchill comments on Edmund Burke in the index. I thought Burke deserved a mention, but it’s your book, so it’s your call (and may I add, it has been one of the best treasures that has ever landed on my lap!)  —V.T., England

Thanks for the kind words. Unfortunately the index is the worst feature of the book, and completely missed Burke. The 2016 Rosetta ebook, Churchill in His Own Words, is of course searchable. Both it and the 2012 international edition also contain a useful phrase index. Click these links or see the revolving books to the right >>>>.

Despite the index’s silence, there are five Churchill quotes on Burke, and a sixth by an observer….

1897: “What shadows we are…”

Looking at these shapeless forms, confined in a regulation blanket, the pride of race, the pomp of empire, the glory of war appeared but the faint and unsubstantial fabric of a dream; and I could not help realising with Burke: “What shadows we are and what shadows we pursue.”

Churchill was writing here of British dead in the campaign in the Northwest Frontier of India. (See The Story of the Malakand Field Force.) He nonetheless admired valiant enemies, like the Dervishes in The River War: “…their claim beyond the grave in respect of a valiant death was not less good than that which any of our countrymen could make.”

1939: “Importunate chink” of grasshoppers

[Burke said:] “Because half-a-dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle repose beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field, that of course they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little shrivelled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.”

Churchill was quoting Burke to Colin Thornton-Kemsley, chairman of the Chigwell Conservative Association, who wanted to dismiss WSC for his anti-Chamberlain rhetoric. When Churchill became prime minister, Thornton-Kemsley sent him his apologies. “I want to say only this,” he wrote. “You warned us repeatedly about the German danger and you were right: a grasshopper under a fern is not proud now that he made the field ring with his importunate chink.”

Churchill replied: “I certainly think that Englishmen ought to start fair with one another from the outset in so grievous a struggle and so far as I am concerned the past is dead.”

1941: Anglo-American unity

The great Burke has truly said, “People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors,” and I feel it most agreeable to recall to you that the Jeromes [Churchill’s maternal forebears] were rooted for many generations in American soil, and fought in Washington’s armies for the independence of the American Colonies and the foundation of the United States. I expect I was on both sides then. And I must say I feel on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean now.

The BBC had actively worked to keep Churchill off the air in the Appeasement years, but by 1941 they couldn’t get enough of him. Here he is broadcasting on 16 June 1941, six days before Hitler attacked Russia. His theme, as ever, was Collective Security, and he yearned for America to enter the war.

1951: “Reform without injustice”

A generation would no doubt come to whom their miseries were unknown but it would be sure of having more to eat and bless Stalin’s name. I did not repeat Burke’s dictum, “If I cannot have reform without injustice, I will not have reform.” With the World War going on all round us it seemed vain to moralise aloud.

Churchill is here writing in his fourth volume of Second World War memoirs, The Hinge of Fate. WSC was never given to moralizing—or, as we hear so disgustingly often today, “virtue signaling.” Morality was prominent in his make-up, but in war for him the first priority was “Victory at all costs—Victory in spite of all terror.”

3. Collin Brooks: “Where gusto is the prime quality”

One more reference to Burke in is on page 18. It is a lovely quotation by Collin Brooks about Churchill the conversationalist in Churchill by His Contemporaries (1953). Brooks captures the quality that endeared Churchill, even to political opponents:

“Never was a talker so variously gifted, so ardently listened-to, so little of a prig; never was a man so wedded to precision and verbal nicety so little of a pedant…. Sir Winston would have been equally welcomed by Falstaff in Eastcheap, Ben Jonson at The Mermaid, or Burke and Johnson at The Mitre, that is, in any coterie where the talk is masculine, the wit and humour spontaneous, the erudition unparaded, and where gusto is the prime quality.”

Churchill by Himself, my encyclopedia of Winston Churchill’s most quotable remarks, is to be republished. (If the publishers can ever agree about what form and substance they will allow each other to produce.) To the the original 4000 quotes I’ve added so far 600 new ones.

The “Red Herrings” appendix of misquotes has also grown apace. That, however, is always kept up to date online. You can look it up:

All the “Quotes” Churchill Never Said

Misquotes Part 1: Accepting Change to European Union

Part 2: Fanatic to Liberty

Misquotes Part 3: Lies to Sex

Part 4: Sexism to Ypres

A trove of misquotes

The original “Red Herrings” appendix (2008) contained about 80 misquotes. Since then, with new discoveries it has more than doubled to 175. This is not surprising, since Churchill continues to engage the public interest. A browser search for “Winston Churchill” yields 87 million hits. (Abe Lincoln still comfortably leads with 144 million.) Since 2008, 270 new books about Churchill have been published, never under 14 per year. The recent record is 34 in 2015. So we should not be surprised that misquotes have grown apace.

Verification methods have never varied, although the research tool is improved. This is a digital file constantly expanded by new publications by and about Churchill. Yes, there are still “new books by Churchill”—if you consider his private letters and writings. These comprise The Churchill Documents, published through 2019 by Hillsdale College Press. The last half-dozen of these giant references add another five million words to the 20 million-word Churchill canon. Add another 80 million words about him by historians, biographers, contemporary diarists and memoirists. Of course, this is not every word he ever uttered. But if we can’t find a quote there, or in a valid source elsewhere, we file it as “unattributed.”

Ear-witness: “Every time you see something big….”

New research sometimes causes us to change a quotation’s status. Long regarded among misquotes, is this famous exchange of urinal humor: Clement Attlee, in a House of Commons washroom, as Churchill shuffles away from him: “A bit stand-offish today, are we, Winston?” Churchill replies: “Every time you socialists see something big, you want to nationalize it.”

This was long regarded as sheer fiction. But we finally noticed that a former Churchill private secretary, David Pitblado, claimed to have been an ear-witness. Pitblado’s account, to William Manchester, is in The Last Lion, vol. 1, page 35. Manchester oftentimes played fast and loose with facts, but Pitblado was not known for embroidering them. So we moved this exchange to the ranks of the genuine.

Among the misquotes: “Bring a friend, if you have one…”

Alas, a world-famous exchange between Churchill and Bernard Shaw has now joined the ranks of misquotes.

Shaw supposedly writes WSC: “Am reserving two tickets for you for my premiere. Come and bring a friend—if you have one.” Churchill supposedly replies: “Impossible to be present for the first performance. Will attend the second—if there is one.”

Alas for quoters, Allen Packwood, director of the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge, blew the story apart. In the Churchill Papers he found a set of letters (CHUR 2/165/66,68) in which both Shaw and Churchill denied the exchange. The play in question was “Buoyant Billions” (1948).

Fresh fodder for misquotes…

…constantly appears in new Churchill quote books. Most entries lack attribution, even a date—which makes them immediately suspect. A recent example is The Smart Words and Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill (2017). Hilariously, even the title is not original: The Wicked Wit of Winston Churchill (2001) was another highly inaccurate compilation.

Reviewing the former, William John Shepherd found 28 entires, 11% of the book, unrelated to anything Churchill said by all the resources we could muster. A dozen were credited to other persons, like: “There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst is that half of them are true.” (Churchill said this, crediting a “witty Irishman.”)

Smart Words furnished another 20 brand new misquotes for our “Red Herrings” department. They range from the banal (“You don’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer”) to the vulgar (“At Harrow they taught us not to piss on our hands”)  to Yogi Berra-style (“It is never necessary to commit suicide, especially if you live to regret it”).  They contain a number we wish Churchill had said, but cannot verify: “If I could not be who I am, I would most like to be Mrs. Churchill’s second husband.”And: “A man does what he must—in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures—and that is the basis of all human morality.”

All of these add to the growing store of Churchill non-quotations. The misquotes industry—what Nigel Rees called “Churchillian Drift“—is going strong.

…is the only Churchill quotations book with each entry referenced with a date and source. There’s even an appendix on incorrect quotations (called “Red Herrings”), stating why they are not Churchill’s. By Himself is also the only Churchill quote book that has undergone repeated reviews to produce a text as close to Churchill’s original words as possible. Fortunately, it’s been continuously in print for over ten years, making constant revision possible.

Just before the first publication in 2008, we found that a transcriber had made many errors in copying out quotations. Despite a mammoth last minute effort (which cost most of our advance), they were not all caught. Two devoted proofreaders, Dave Turrell and Barbara Langworth, were determined to get it right, whatever it took. I owe them far more than they were paid.

Any book containing as many references as this one is a constant running battle between contrary sources, “experts” who disagree with each other, and inexorable deadlines. We corrected the major transcription errors and issued an initial list of errata for the first American and first British editions.

Current Revisions

These corrections were entered in the American Rosetta Kindle edition and second hardbound British edition (distinguished by a dust jacket that does not cut off the top of WSC’s head, as in the first British). Also available, with corrections, is the third British edition (softbound), with an admirable new cover and a new title: Churchill in His Own Words. If you prefer a print to an electronic edition, I recommend this one.

Phrase Index

The Third British edition, Churchill in His Own Words, and the Kindle edition, have a feature not found in earlier versions. Appendix IV is now a comprehensive phrase index, which greatly abets the index itself. It pinpoints scores of common phrases that are most often sought by readers. If you own an edition without this index, contact me for a copy by email. (The pagination in all editions remains the same.)

Future Developments

Recently we began a review of every individual entry in Churchill by Himself. We also undertook an future expanded edition, with up to 500 new quotations making nearly 5000 in all. Many noteworthy quotes appeared for the first time in Hillsdale’s companion volumes to the official biography: The Churchill Documents.

Ultimately, we hope to evolve to digital links with an electronic research system being developed by the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. The ultimate goal is to link all quote references in Churchill by Himself to a Churchill Project archival research site available online to students, scholars and the public.

Churchill Revised Himself

This is a satisfying if laborious process. It is also an education. For example, we found many detail variations in wording or punctuation between what Churchill published in his original volumes and later editions. Churchill was a tireless reviser and often altered his texts. Only a few weeks ago we learned of key changes in his 1948 Norway speeches, entered in his corresponding book of speeches, Europe Unite. It’s the job of Churchill by Himself to point out these variations, when significant.

Puzzles and Contradictions

Robert Rhodes James’s Complete Speeches or Hansard had recorded. In these cases we assign priority, when we have a choice, to Churchill’s own books.

Even Sir Martin Gilbert’s official biography is subject to variations. For instance, Churchill By Himself on page 360 carries Churchill’s wonderful valedictory to Eddie Marsh, from Sir Martin’s Volume VIII (published 1988): “All his long life was serene, and he left that world I trust without a pang and I am sure without a fear.”

But in Christopher Hassall’s biography of Marsh (published 1959), the quote reads “this world” not “that world.” and has more commas: “…he left this world, I trust, without a pang, and I am sure without a fear.”

Sir Martin’s version is good enough for me, and if ever I contradict him, it will be when I find different wording in one of Churchill’s own works. I am indifferent to missing commas, which appear and vanish in various texts; but I retain any change that seems critical. We have not attempted to reconcile instances of English and American spelling. The word “organisation/organization,” for example, was used interchangeably, even in English works. There is only so much rationalizing you can do before you drive yourself mad.

Errata Sheets

We checked each entry against its original version. Most errors were trivial, not affecting Churchill’s meaning. Nevertheless we rooted them out. The British second edition corrected many, but there are more, ranging from a misplaced comma to a mangled word or phrase. We maintain a running complete errata sheet for anyone who wishes it. Please contact me through the contact form on this website.

Also on this website are the latest editions to the “Red Herrings” appendix, a popular part of Churchill by Himself. These are remarks wrongly attributed to WSC. He never said them. Or, if he did, he quoted someone else.

For me, the best errata sheet of all will be the fourth and final edition of Churchill by Himself: In His Own Words, the culmination of a thirty-year trawl through Churchill’s inimitable prose.

Oslo Variations

A reader reminds us of these obscure orations by sending one: Churchill’s dinner speech on May 12th. His source is Churchill’s Visit to Norway (Oslo: Cappelens, 1949). Curiously, we found wide variation and two omissions from Churchill’s Europe Unite. One omission involves Admiral François Darlan, who disgraced himself by refusing to safeguard the French fleet from a likely German takeover in 1940.

This raises a question familiar to quotations editors. Which is the authoritative text? My usual rule is to go by the final revised edition of Churchill’s own works, if possible. For Oslo 1948, that is Europe Unite, which had no later edition.  (The Complete Speeches usually duplicates, more or less, his speech volumes.)

What about the passages reported by Cappelens but not in Europe Unite? Were the Norwegians editorializing? Not likely. Translation anomalies are one explanation. But the omitted sections do sound like Churchill. So it’s more likely that Randolph Churchill, editing Europe Unite, deleted them.

Darlan (and the subsequent British destruction of the French Fleet) are sore subjects among Frenchmen. While Randolph Churchill was editing Europe Unite, Churchill’s second volume of war memoirs, L’heure Tragique, was causing controversy in France over his account of France’s fall, including Darlan’s behavior. Randolph, or his father, may have judged it unnecessary to fan more flames.

Churchill by Himself: Maxims

Starting with “Maxims,” here are the new entries from Churchill’s 12 May 1948 Oslo dinner speech, arranged by subject and referenced by title and page number.

Kindness and Humility: “The more kindness I receive, the more humble I become.” —Europe Unite, 329. Churchill continued: “I know very well how vain it is for individuals to try to gather to themselves all the credit which really belongs to the great countries and the great nations whose virtues have had the opportunity of crediting to themselves in world history.”

Right and Wrong: “The problem of life is not presented to us as a simple calculation of what is wise and what is foolish…because judgments are falsified by events.” —Cappelens, 33. Churchill continued: “…if you will obey the promptings of your spirit or nature, when your conscience gives you such lights as may be granted, you will find that there is a way which is far safer in the long run than all the calculations of the most astute and clever politicians that have ever been made.” (This passage is not in Europe Unite or the Complete Speeches.)

World War II

Political Options, May 1940: “I have often been praised for things I said at the beginning of the War, when England was fighting alone. That was only expressions of my people [because] it was their courage and great qualities I put into words. And it was what my colleagues wanted me to say. If I had not, they would have pulled me to pieces, as I certainly would have pulled them to pieces the other way round.” —Europe Unite, 329.

People

Galeazzo Ciano: “Take for instance Count Ciano who started the attack on France and England in the moment when France was beaten. “France will not come again in five thousand years,” he said. But in two years the situation was changed. That does show how even seemingly clever calculations very often do not come off at all.” —Europe Unite, 330. Gian Galeazzo Ciano (1903-1944), Second Count of Cortellazzo and Buccari, Foreign Minister of Fascist Italy 1936-42. Executed by firing squad, 11 January 1944, at the behest of his father-in-law, Mussolini, under pressure from Germany.

François Darlan: “There was a man who had the French navy in the hollow of his hand; he had only to give the word to sail away to America, or to the French colonies, and he would have gone there, carrying with him the title-deeds of the France of the future, of Free France….But he cast it all away by calculation. He thought that to become Minister of Marine would give him more power at the time; and so he lost all that he cared most about, and his life was cast away in shame, where it might have been long preserved in honour, through calculation.” —Cappelens, 32. (This passage is not in Europe Unite or the Complete Speeches.ˆ)

Oslo University Ring

“I thank you most cordially for your kindness and for all you have done for me. I wear the ring of the Oslo University on my finger and will consider it as a kind of marriage ring.I must confess that I have quite a selection of University Degrees and their insignias at home, but I have never received a ring with any degree before. “—Europe, 331. “What happened to the ring?” was the reader question that set off this trawl for Churchill’s Oslo remarks. The only University ring ever presented to him, it is unknown to his family, and its present whereabouts are uncertain.

Conjecture

Omissions from speeches pose a question for nitpickers and fussbudgets like me. Why? Cappelens probably translated the text from Norwegian news reports, That would explain part of it—but not the huge passages about Darlan and “the problem of life,” missing in the speech volumes.

Were the Cappelens people editorializing? It seems unlikely. The Darlan text sounds like genuine Churchill prose. More likely Randolph Churchill, the editor of Europe Unite, did a little culling. Perhaps he desired not to ruffle French feathers over Darlan. His father always felt Darlan lost his chance at glory by refusing to safeguard the French fleet after the Fall of France in June 1940. This caused Churchill and the Royal Navy to attack a good part of it at Mers el-Kebir, a sad chapter in wartime history.

The omission of Churchill’s musings over “the problem of life” is harder to explain. Nevertheless, this was an interesting exercise in the establishment of texts. It serves as a warning which Churchill himself often quoted: “Verify your quotations.”

“Red Herrings” are part of what quotemaster Nigel Rees calls “Churchillian Drift.” (Click here for the full description.) Several other Churchill sites use my Red Herrings appendix to furnish their own lists of things Churchill never said. This is all to the good. The more who know the truth, the better for history.

Note: A complete list of Red Herrings to date is posted and regularly updated in four parts on this website. Start by clicking here.

AZ Quotes

Dozens of readers have sent email attachments from a website called AZ Quotes. They ask: “Are these accurate?” The answer: Not a lot. AZ Quotes is a serious purveyor of “Churchillian Drift.” I don’t think there is a larger batch of fake Churchillisms anywhere. This is no modest collection. To paraphrase Churchill, it has much to be modest about.

AZ doesn’t hide its goal to be quote king of the Internet: “To ensure that we have the biggest quotes collection of all (and this is true), we’re digging up books, newspapers, magazines and interviews—any source that can give us a good quote.” Indeed so! Apparently any source that can “give us a good quote” is fair game to AZ, no matter how wrong. “Digging up” is apposite.

AZ Quotes claims to care about accuracy: “…it’s an important thing for any quote and any quotes website. Every quote we add to our website we pick up manually and then check. Unfortunately, there can be mistakes: if you’ve found any such bogus quotes, report it to us immediately. Immediately, please!” Good grief, where do we start?

Castaway in Churchillian Drift

The alleged Churchill remarks posted by AZ Quotes take up (at this date) fifty-one browser pages. At about twenty-five per page, that’s roughly 1275 in all. Sporadically, attributions are provided—but not often. I would rather have an appendectomy than examine all 1275. I did look at the thirty-four most commonly sent by readers. Of these, three are fully attributable to Churchill.

To be charitable, eight are roughly approximate, but seriously muddled. Some are cobbled from different appearances, or bowdlerized out of all resemblance to Churchill’s actual words. Others are taken from other speakers. To claim Churchill said it makes a quote more interesting. AZ attaches his name to quotations from Charles de Gaulle to Cordell Hull. They must have reasoned: who cares what Cordell Hull said?

Twenty-three of these thirty-four AZ Quotes bear little or no relationship to anything Churchill uttered. They do not track in the ever-widening store of digital references compiled by the Hillsdale College Churchill Project. This file includes 30 million published words by Churchill and in his Official Biography. It adds 50 million more words in books, memoirs and speeches about him. Ultimately, Hillsdale hopes to offer access to this index to students, researchers and scholars on its Churchill website.

I’ve posted my complete updated list of “Red Herrings” as a public service. It may be an antidote to what I’m reading on AZ Quotes. Arrgh! Pass the hemlock.

The Top Ten

AZ Quotes continues to add entries. They seem to post quotations willy-nilly, some perhaps sent by readers, with no attempt to verify. Some duplicate or slightly revise others. Here are the first thirty-four, in the order most often encountered. An asterisk denotes new entries for the next “Red Herrings” appendix in Churchill by Himself. “CBH” denotes current references in that book. Bold face denotes three quotations AZ Quotes actually gets right. (Stand up!)

*1. Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions. ✸ No attribution.

2. You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones to every dog that barks. ✸ From a 1923 speech, but Churchill was quoting someone else. He preceded this by saying, “As someone said…” AZ also mangles the quote. Correctly: “As someone said, you will never get to the end of your journey if you stop to shy a stone at every dog that barks” (CBH 579). 

*3. Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision. ✸ No attribution. 

4. A nation that forgets its past has no future. ✸ No attribution. Possibly muddled from “…if we open a quarrel between the past and present we shall find that we have lost the future” (18 June 1940, CBH 24).

*5. The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible. ✸ No attribution. 

* * *

6. If you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart. if you’re not a conservative at forty, you have no brain. ✸ No attribution. Mangled from the usual erroneous version: If a man is not liberal in youth he has no heart. If he is not conservative when older he has no brain (CBH 576).

 7. Socialism is [the] philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. ✸ Inaccurate. The words through “envy” are from a 1948 speech (CBH 394). The rest are incorrectly transcribed from a 1945 speech (CBH 13).

8. There is nothing government can give you that it hasn’t taken from you in the first place. ✸ Inaccurate. Correctly “…Governments create nothing and have nothing to give but what they have first taken away…” (1903 Speech, CBH 393.)

9. The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. ✸ No attribution. He had far more respect for the average voter (CBH 573).

10. Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. ✸ No attribution. Often credited to Lincoln, also without proof. Click here.

The Next Worst

*11. A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest. ✸ No attribution and out of character for Churchill, who was not given to sexist wisecracks. (See also #30.)

 12. A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. ✸ No attribution. See “Churchill on the Optimist and Pessimist.” (CBH 578.)

*13. If Britain must chose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea. ✸ Incorrect. Actually referred to choosing between de Gaulle or the Free French and Roosevelt. The correct quotation: “Each time we must choose between Europe and the open sea, we shall always choose the open sea. Each time I must choose between you and Roosevelt, I shall always choose Roosevelt” (de Gaulle, Unity, 153). See “EU and Churchill’s Views.”

*14. One man with conviction will overwhelm a hundred who have only opinions. ✸ Not Churchill but Alfred George Gardiner, quoted by Robert Rhodes James in the introduction to Churchill’s Complete Speeches: “One man with a conviction will overwhelm a hundred who have only opinions, and Mr. Churchill always bursts into the fray with a conviction so clean, so decisive, so burning, that opposition is stampeded” (Complete Speeches vol. I, 12).

15. The main vice of capitalism is the uneven distribution of prosperity. The main vice of socialism is the even distribution of misery. ✸ Inaccurate. Correctly: “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” See #7 above (CBH 13).

* * *

16. However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. ✸ No attribution. See “Mr. Stern, Mr. Trump…” (CBH 580).

*17. You don’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. ✸ No attribution.

18. A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. ✸ Not Churchill but Cordell Hull and incorrectly transcribed. Correctly: “A lie will gallop halfway round the world before the truth has time to pull its breeches on.” Also, Churchill would likely have said “trousers” not pants or breeches. See “Galloping Lie” (CBH 476).

*19. Life can either be accepted or changed. If it is not accepted, it must be changed. If it cannot be changed, then it must be accepted. ✸ No attribution.

20. We contend that 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. ✸ Inaccurate. Correctly: “Can a people tax themselves into prosperity? Can a man stand in a bucket and lift himself up by the handle?” (1904 speech, CBH 387.

Jackpot: Three out of ten right

*21. I’d rather argue against a hundred idiots than have one agree with me. ✸ No attribution.

22. Islam is more dangerous in a man than rabies in a dog. ✸ Inaccurate. Correctly: “Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy” (CBH 464).

23. In the course of my life, I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet. ✸ Correct! WSC once remarked: “Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened” (CBH 486).  

*24. Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut. ✸ No attribution.

25. An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. ✸ Inaccurate. Correctly: “Each one [of the neutral nations] hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last” (Broadcast, 1940, CBH 262).

* * *

26. Everyone is in favour of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they a free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage. ✸ Right again. AZ Quotes is on a roll! (CBH 99.)

27. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen; all know how to die: but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science—the science against which it had vainly struggled— the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome. ✸ Two in a row! This gives us hope, but not for long (CBH 464).

 28. You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” ✸ No attribution, but very popular (CBH 574).

*29. I no longer listen to what people say, I just watch what they do. Behavior never lies. ✸  No attribution.

*30. Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds? [Socialite: “My goodness, Mr. Churchill… Well, I suppose… we would have to discuss terms, of course.”] Would you sleep with me for five pounds? [“What kind of a woman do you think I am?”] We’ve already established that. Now we are haggling about the price. ✸ No attribution. Who invents such stuff?

We shall go on to the end…

31. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” ✸ No attribution (CBH 576).

32. Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon. ✸ Roughly right but the last sentence is invented. Correctly: “Only a handful see it for what it really is—the strong and willing horse that pulls the whole cart along” (1959 speech, CBH 392).

*33. A nation that fails to honor its heroes soon will have no heroes to honor. ✸ No attribution.

*34. It is better to do something than to do nothing while waiting to do everything. ✸ No attribution.

There are fifty more pages of alleged Churchill on AZ Quotes. One day if I have nothing else to do, I will investigate further. Help, anybody!

Who here is in their Forties? Are you as pessimistic as he was?

Winston Churchill was 48 when he penned some “Reflections on the Century,” which may arrest you with their prescience—and their eerie relevance.

His words below are in his original “speech form.” This is the way they were set out on the notes he carried with him, however well he memorized his lines. They appear in this style in my collection of quotations, Churchill by Himself, but differ from the way you may have encountered them in other books:

What a disappointment [this] century has been.…

     We have seen in ev[ery] country a dissolution,

          a weakening of those bonds,

               a challenge to those principles,

                    a decay of faith

                         an abridgement of hope

                              on wh[ich] structure & ultimate existence of civilised society depends.

We have seen in ev[ery] part of the globe

     one g[rea]t country after another

          wh[ich] had erected an orderly, a peaceful, a prosperous structure of civilised society,

                relapsing in hideous succession into bankruptcy, barbarism or anarchy.

Can you doubt, my faithful friends

     as you survey this sombre panorama,

          that mankind is passing through a period marked

              not only by an enormous destruction & abridgement of human species,

                   not only by a vast impoverishment & reduction in means of existence,

                        but also that destructive tendencies have not yet run their course?

And only intense, concerted & prolonged efforts

     among all nations

          can avert further & perhaps even greater calamities?”

One might think these the words of some modern Cassandra, speaking about the 21st Century. But no, it is Churchill, ninety-four years ago, at a similar juncture in the century before—the 20th. We may debate whether things now are quite as forbidding as his description then. In 1922, “greater calamities” were indeed coming.

Churchill’s Political Philosophy

Churchill was a seasoned thinker by then, Sir Martin Gilbert tells us. Not yet fifty, he could look back on two decades of public life. For much of that time, he had been an active participant at the centre of policymaking, arguing his points with men of experience and expertise, testing his ideas amid the daily pressure of departmental business, and reflecting, with each year, on the evolution of the world scene, and the nature of man.”

He had evolved what Gilbert described as “three  interwoven strands” of political philosophy: “the appeasement of class bitterness at home, the appeasement of the fearful hatreds and antagonisms abroad, and the defence of Parliamentary democracy and democratic values….” To achieve these, his method was “conciliation…the path of moderation. But where force alone could preserve the libertarian values, force would have to be used. It could only be a last resort—the horrors of war, and the very nature of democracy, ensured that—but in the last resort it might be necessary to defend those values by force of arms.”*

“These reflection were sometimes sombre,” Sir Martin added. They are perhaps no less sombre a century later.

_____

• Martin Gilbert, Churchill’s Political Philosophy (London: British Academy, 1981), 83.

After resigning as Secretary of State (1947-49) owing to ill health, Marshall recovered long enough to be President Truman‘s Secretary of Defense (1950-51)—the only uniformed military officer ever to hold that position. In 1953 he headed the U.S. delegation to the coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth II, and became the only career U.S. army officer to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, largely for the Marshall Plan (European Recovery Act) that helped Europe revive after the war.

Alistair Cooke always sniffed and told me that the Marshall Plan should really have been called the Acheson Plan, for all the work Dean Acheson put into it. But Harry Truman insisted it be named for his Secretary of State. In part through Marshall’s efforts and prestige, it passed Congress with bipartisan support—not something transformative Acts of Congress seem to do nowadays.

Thomas E. Ricks has a good brief review of “Marshall VII” in Foreign Policy. “He had his faults, but he was a thoughtful, well-balanced man, and that comes out even in his minor exchanges. Again and again, I am struck at how well he handled Congress. He was clear and honest. Yet he also took very political steps.” Ricks calls Marshall “a decent man, not always treated decently.”

Marshall and Churchill

As soon as we were in the air I addressed myself to the Russian communiqué. As I found it very hard to make head or tail of the bundle of drafts, with all our emendations in the President’s scrawls and mine, I sent it along to General Marshall, who two hours later presented me with a typed fair copy. I was immensely impressed with this document, which exactly expressed what the President and I wanted, and did so with a clarity and comprehension not only of the military but of the political issues involved. It excited my admiration. Hitherto I had thought of Marshall as a rugged soldier and a magnificent organiser and builder of armies—the American Carnot. But now I saw that he was a statesman with a penetrating and commanding view of the whole scene. I was delighted with his draft, and also that the task was done. I wrote to the President that it could not be better, and asked him to send it off with any alterations he might wish, without further reference to me.

The campaign to Leave is heating up. Take Grassroots Out, a “combined operation” supporting Brexit—the campaign for Great Britain to exit the European Union. G-O fielded a broad spectrum of speakers in London February 19th. Along with UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage were Conservative Sir William Cash, Labour’s Kate Hoey, economist Ruth Lea, and a London cab driver.

The most unexpected Leave speaker was the far-left former Labour MP and head of the socialist Respect Party. Mr. George Galloway was immediately queried about his new colleagues.

“We are not pals,” Galloway replied. “We are allies in one cause. Like Churchill and Stalin.” He did not say which was which. We report, you decide.

Leave colleagues? Mr. Farage offered Churchillian collegiality. “I don’t suspect there’s a single domestic policy, in many cases foreign policy, of which George Galloway and I would agree. But, look, sometimes in life an issue comes along which is bigger than traditional difference.” (See “The New Happy Warrior.”)

Boris = Lord Randolph?

The Leave campaign received more support February 21st. London’s then-mayor and Churchill biographer Boris Johnson announced he would campaign for Brexit, invoking his admiration for Sir Winston.

Anti-Leave Conservative MP Sir Keith Simpson retorted that Johnson’s decision was “more reminiscent of [Lord] Randolph [Churchill] than Winston. “Randolph was a more extrovert character. [He] made the political weather then catastrophically offered his resignation when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. [It] was accepted by the then-Prime Minister Lord Salisbury.”

Lord Randolph more extroverted than Winston? YGTBK, as they say on Twitter.

Johnson’s principled decision to support Brexit, defying his prime minister, is far more reminiscent of Winston Churchill’s resignation from the shadow cabinet in 1931. Churchill left over differences on the India Act. That cost Churchill eight years in the political wilderness. This might be Johnson’s fate if Prime Minister Cameron survives the June 23 referendum.

Lord Randolph’s 1886 resignation, by contrast, was thought to be less decisive. He quit over a trivial issue, expecting to be asked back with more power. Lord Salisbury made no such offer, destroying him politically. “Have you ever heard of a man who, having had a carbuncle removed from his neck, asking that it be put back?” Salisbury quipped.

Leave Pied Piper: The True Churchillian

… in this kerfuffle is Mr. Farage—not for representing Churchill’s view of European unity (a complicated subject), but for expressing Churchill’s attitude toward political opponents. (See also: “What Would Winston Do?“)

Mr. Farage invited Mr. Galloway to speak. He introduced Galloway as “one of the greatest orators in this country…a towering figure on the left,”  adding that they would work together in the Brexit battle:

On that night, yes, the Respect Party was on the platform, so was the Conservative Party [and the Labour Party]. The point about Grassroots Out is, we’re bringing people together from across the spectrum….[Mr. Galloway] said some very disabling things about me but, look, sometimes…etc.

Farage was displaying Churchill’s famous collegiality—a rare commodity among politicians today. Churchill based this on his belief that everyone in public office deserved respect for serving the country, regardless of how violently he disagreed with their politics.

Churchill and Bevan

Instead of Churchill and Stalin, Mr. Galloway might like to compare Mr. Farage and himself to Churchill and Bevan.

Aneurin Bevan (1897-1960), socialist MP for Ebbw Vale, was a Welsh firebrand with whom Churchill frequently clashed. Bevan would label Churchill a servant of plutocrat oppressors of the workers. Churchill would call Bevan, founder of the National Health Service, “the Minister of Disease.”

Hearing that Bevan had died, Churchill launched into a soliloquy: “A great man, the founder of the National Health Service, a tremendous advocate for socialism and his party….”

Then he paused in mid-sentence. “Er, are you sure he’s dead?”*

_________

* Quotation from Churchill by Himself, 326.

Unless Mr. Hodgson has found a new attribution, that charmer is not Churchill’s. It’s listed in the “Red Herrings” appendix in Churchill by Himself, page 575, with this note:

​​Repeatedly attributed to everyone from Woodrow Wilson’s physician to Ronald Reagan. “Clergyman Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) is one person to whom the thought was attributed in his time. Oliver Wendell Holmes is another…Verdict: ​Long-time male equestrian wisdom.” –Ralph Keyes, The Quote Verifier, 91.

​And here I say to parents, especially to​ wealthy parents, “Don’t give your son money. As far as you can afford it, give him horses.” No one ever came to grief—except honourable grief—through riding horses. No hour of life is lost that is spent in the saddle. Young men have often been ruined through owning horses, or through backing horses, but never through riding them; unless of course they break their necks, which, taken at a gallop, is a very good death to die.​

Although Churchill cracked that he took his exercise acting as a pallbearer for friends who had exercised all their lives, he played polo into his fifties, was still “riding to hounds” in his late seventies, and kept a thoroughbred racing stable into his eighties. In the House of Commons, 24 June 1952 he said: “I have always considered that the substitution of the internal combustion engine for the horse marked a very gloomy milestone in the progress of mankind.”

Addendum

A nice note from Mr. Hodgson, who corrected his quotation, adding:  “I hope that if you feel the need to quote me again on your web site it might read, ‘When a horse wins the Kentucky Derby, everyone wants to be seen standing beside him, much like those who would have their name printed below a great quote.'” See also “Churchlllian (or Yogi Berra) Drift” on this site.

—Which reminds me of another thing Churchill wrote (also in My Early Life, about the cavalry charge at Omdurman in 1898)…

In one respect a cavalry charge is very like ordinary life. So long as you are all right, firmly in your saddle, your horse in hand, and well armed, lots of enemies will give you a wide berth. But as soon as you have lost a stirrup, have a rein cut, have dropped your weapon, are wounded, or your horse is wounded, then is the moment when from all quarters enemies rush upon you. Such was the fate of not a few of my comrades….”​

Born Meyer Tuchschneider in the lower east side of Manhattan in 1925, Richard Deane Taylor achieved immortality among Churchillians when he painted one of the most evocative and accurate portraits of Winston Churchill for Collier’s in 1951, to mark Churchill’s return to office following the British general election.

Years later, Mr. Taylor’s great work was revived on the cover of the Churchill magazine Finest Hour. He then he gave me the privilege of using it on the first English edition of my book of quotations, Churchill By Himself. It also adorns The Churchill Companion, a compendium of facts.

Taylor made…

The youngest and last surviving child Polish immigrants who arrived in the 1920s, Richard lettered for Beck and Constanza Studios and did illustrations for Fawcett Publications’ Shazam! Captain Marvel comic books while a teenager at Brooklyn Tech. Drafted by the Army in 1943, he received three medals for honorable service through 1946. Then he took up study of fine arts at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere and the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Back in America in the early Fifties, he produced wonderfully realistic portraits for Colliers, Newsweek and True. He also produced ommercial art for Remington Rand, Dewar’s Whisky, Esso, Revlon, Johnson & Johnson, Schaefer Beer and Air France.

At the High School of Art and Design in the late Sixties, he  is remembered fondly as a beloved instructor. Taylor appreciated the challenges his students from low-income areas  while developing their talents. He is believed to have influenced two generations of comic-book and commercial artists.

Richard completed countless oil and watercolor paintings, pen-and-ink drawings and charcoal/graphite sketches throughout his career. He was an avid photographer who loved travel, guitar and baseball.

Richard leaves behind a son and daughter and three grandchildren. “A man never dies as long as he is remembered.” Richard’s portraiture is a lasting tribute to his life and work.

_____

Background information from Richard’s obituary in The New York Times.

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. Nevertheless the process of revision is endless.

Accordingly, publishers were chosen who keep books in print with frequent reprints, allowing continual revision. The Second Edition, extensively corrected down even to ellipsis points, will be published by Public Affairs in 2010. The Third Edition will be improved again, and so on.

For readers who own First Editions I offer below the most important corrections—the ones I’d dearly like to have back, and sometimes alter by hand when inscribing copies personally! A master list containing many more corrections is being prepared for the Second Edition, and I welcome being advised of any that my readers should find.

Although many persons helped compile this list, my special gratitude is owed to Professor David Dilks, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hull, not only for his fastidious note-taking, but for his lack of pedantry and understanding in improving the book—qualities which, I have come to learn, are rare. —RML

Note: “106/1” means page 106, column 1.

1. Corrections to British and American Editions

Page 1 caption, line 2 should read: With Sir John Anderson on Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945.

16/1 Difficulties, “Don’t argue the matter”: for “1941” read 1942.

23/1 Personnel. For date “1941” read 1942

25/2 Right and wrong: For date “26 May” read 27 May. In the note, lines 1-2, revise to read: WSC to Clement Davies, who ventured to suggest that President Truman meet privately with

32, third paragraph, last two lines should read: for a traitor. According to his last Private Secretary Churchill called John Foster Dulles “dull-duller-Dulles,” and it was just like him.

82/2 first note, penultimate line: for “House of Commons” read Guildhall after the war

100/1, first note, line 4, replace to read: Sidney (1622-1683, son of the Earl of Leicester)

3-8, revise to read: division of power has lain at the root of our development. We do not want to live under a system dominated either by one man or one theme. Like nature we follow in freedom the  paths of variety and change and our faith is  that the mercy of God will make things get better of we all try our best.

101/1 first entry, replace as follows: …elections exist for the sake of the House of Commons and not…the House of Commons…for the sake of elections. 1953, 3 November.

106/1, first editor’s note should read: Churchill was referring to Lord Rosebery (Prime Minister 1894-95), whose horses, Ladas II and Sir Visto, won the Derby in 1894 and 1895….

106/2, line 2: for “New York University” read the University of the State of New York

118/1 second quote should run before the first quote, and its dateline should read: 1940, 20 August.

130/2, second note, last sentence should read: Britain and the Commonwealth contributed $6 billion in “Reverse Lend-Lease” such as rent on airbases.

144, caption should read: WSC with Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta, February 1945.

155/2, third date from top, for 1919 read 1929.

254/2, Ribbentrop meeting credit line should read: 1938, MARCH. (GUEDALLA, 271-72.) Revise the note to read: The Cabinet had asked Churchill to join them for lunch to bid farewell to Hitler’s Ambassador Joachim von Ribbentrop, while Austria was being absorbed by Germany. The quote is…

321/1, “Attlee,” first entry date: for “1935.” read 1940.

328/2, Brodrick note, last line: for “1860-1907” read 1890-1907

329, last line: for “Conservative” read Liberal

359/1 last note, last line: for “Duncannon” read: Dunconnel

369/2 first note should read: Conversation at a luncheon thrown by Chamberlain for the German Ambassador to Britain, Ribbentrop, 11 March 1938, at the time of the Anschluss with Austria…[etc.]

518/1, top line: for “WSC’s private secretary” read Liberal MP

527/1 second note, line 2: for “9 May” read 10 May.

544/1 second entry: For “Nazim” read Nazimuddin. For the date “1941” read 1953

556/1 “Practice,” note, line 2: for “Moseley” read Mosley.

561 footnote line 1: for “1954” read 1945.

570, paragraph 4 line 1: revise last sentence to read: For example, “The heaviest cross I have to bear is the Cross of Lorraine” is so well established that I was surprised to learn that someone else said it.

573: delete “Dull, duller, Dulles” which has been attributed.

575: delete “Grace of God” and “Impromptu remarks” which have been attributed.

2. Corrections to the First British Edition only.

(All of the following have been made in the American edition)

11 caption line 2 should read: In a tommy’s helmet visiting the defences at Dover, 1943.

132/2 top entry: for 27 read 28 June.

380 caption, line 2: delete “in Woodford”

532 caption: For “study” read bedroom.

3. Addenda

I have found two instances where Churchill’s words were incorrect (or, more likely, his transcribers were): On page 528, column 2, line 7, Churchill said “sixteen years later” but should have said “six.” On page 553, column 2, “Interruptions, answering,” Churchill is recorded as saying “abrogated,” but almost certainly he said “arrogated.”

Page 20, column 2, first entry: Manfred Weidhorn brings to my attention a previous occurrence of almost the same words, in Churchill’s essay, “A Second Choice” (1931, March. Strand Magazine; Thoughts, 11): The journey has been enjoyable and well worth making—once.”

Page 322, Stanley Baldwin: A distinguished historian has suggested to me that Churchill’s attitude toward Baldwin was not as uniformly critical as the quotes here listed. He quoted WSC’s praise of SB at the Party Conference in October 1935 and in private letters, and noted that Churchill visited Baldwin’s home in 1950, after SB’s death. I believe however that Churchill was singularly critical of Baldwin, per Martin Gilbert’s In Search of Churchill, as quoted here, and outlined my reasons in “How Churchill Saw Others: Stanley Baldwin,” Finest Hour 101, Winter 1998-99.

Page 360, Marshall, note 2: It has been suggested to me that Churchill met Lazare Carnot (see under Trotsky, page 375), but I am not sure. Sadi Carnot was a reconciler, Lazare a revolutionary. Though the latter was known as “the organizer of victory,” I am not sure Churchill thought of Marshall in quite those terms.

Page 573 (main entry), also 32, 570: “Dull-duller-dulles” (with the hyphens) has been attributed, by Sir Anthony Montague Browne (Long Sunset), 126.’’ Thanks to Jim Lancaster for digging out this and several other attributions in Sir Anthony’s book.

Page 576, column 2: Leise Christensen has advised me that when the Duke of Northumberland said “A living dog is better than a dead lion,” he was himself quoting from Ecclesastes 9:4.

Page 579, “Best of Everything”: Thanks to Robert Pilpel for reporting that George Bernard Shaw preceded both F.E. Smith and Churchill with this line in his play, “Major B” (1905), when Lady Britomart says (act 1, scene 1): “I know your quiet, simple, refined, poetic people like Adolphus—quite content with the best of everything!”