Tag: Churchill quotes

Churchill’s Word Play: “Notability or Notoriety”

Churchill’s Word Play: “Notability or Notoriety”

Manfred Weidhorn: "The law of averages dictates that some of these dreamers succeed. Churchill was one of them. Hence he is the hero of our hypothetical non-realistic novel. As a young man, Churchill put the world on notice with his memorably declared resolve to be an achiever by either notability or notoriety."

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Churchill’s words: Choosing between War and Shame—and getting both.

Churchill’s words: Choosing between War and Shame—and getting both.

It is fre­quent­ly asked: What did Churchill say about those who trade hon­or for peace hav­ing in nei­ther in the end?

“War and Shame”

There are two quo­ta­tions. The first was Churchill in a let­ter to Lloyd George on 13 August 1938, just before the Munich Con­fer­ence, which led to World War II a year later.

I think we shall have to choose in the next few weeks between war and shame, and I have very lit­tle doubt what the deci­sion will be.

Ref­er­ence is Churchill by Him­self, page 256, quot­ing Mar­tin Gilbert, ed., The Churchill Doc­u­ments, vol.…

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Success: What Churchill REALLY Said

Success: What Churchill REALLY Said

It is Com­mence­ment time across col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties, and some speak­ers will be quot­ing Churchill on suc­cess in life. In the hope that they will quote him accu­rate­ly, here is a small selec­tion. At the bot­tom are two no-nos: things he nev­er said, but is always cred­it­ed as saying.

University of Miami, 26 February 1946:

I am sur­prised that in my lat­er life I should have become so expe­ri­enced in tak­ing degrees, when, as a school-boy I was so bad at pass­ing exam­i­na­tions. In fact one might almost say that no one ever passed so few exam­i­na­tions and received so many degrees.…

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Churchill on the Optimist and the Pessimist

Churchill on the Optimist and the Pessimist

Opti­mist and Pes­simist: Fif­teen min­utes of fame! David Davis MP, Sec­re­tary of State for Brex­it, boots one in his recent speech and I’m final­ly in The Guardian. Prob­a­bly the first and last time, giv­en my opinions. **

Ques­tion: Refer­ring to your posts of quotations Churchill nev­er said, do you know who actu­al­ly did say “A pes­simist sees the dif­fi­culty in every oppor­tu­nity; an opti­mist sees the oppor­tu­nity in every dif­fi­cul­ty”? I find no attri­bu­tion oth­er than to Churchill.

Pessimist: Not Churchill’s Quip

Answer: Sor­ry. I can’t track it; nor can my col­league Ralph Keyes, edi­tor of The Quote Ver­i­fi­er.…

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Churchill: Not Much to Say Today?

Churchill: Not Much to Say Today?

If a man is com­ing across the sea to kill you, you do every­thing in your pow­er to make sure he dies before fin­ish­ing his jour­ney. That may be dif­fi­cult, it may be painful, but at least it is sim­ple. We are now enter­ing a world of impon­der­ables, and at every stage occa­sions for self-ques­tion­ing arise. Only one link in the chain of des­tiny can be han­dled at a time. 

—Win­ston S. Churchill, 18 Feb­ru­ary 1945

It was recent­ly assert­ed that Churchill doesn’t have much to say to us today, and that the only peo­ple who use Churchill as a guide nowa­days are “over-testos­teroned Amer­i­can neocons.”…

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Churchill’s Average Voter

Churchill’s Average Voter

(Or: “Churchillian Drift,” Part 1,398….)

On the eve of the British Gen­er­al Elec­tion, Metro UK declares: “Win­ston Churchill said the best argu­ment against democ­ra­cy is a five-minute con­ver­sa­tion with the aver­age voter.”

This is alas a reap­pear­ance of an ever-pop­u­lar red-her­ring quote that Churchill nev­er said.

Churchill had thought­ful cri­tiques of democ­ra­cy. See in par­tic­u­lar his essay on “Mass Effects in Mod­ern Life” in his book, Thoughts and Adven­tures. But he also had more respect for the aver­age vot­er than this non-quote sug­gests. In the House of Com­mons on 31 Octo­ber 1944 he said:

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 [we still vote that way in New Hampshire]—no amount of rhetoric or volu­mi­nous dis­cus­sion can pos­si­bly dimin­ish the over­whelm­ing impor­tance of that point.…

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“Remember the past”: Santayana, but never Churchill

“Remember the past”: Santayana, but never Churchill

I am a librar­i­an and I have a patron who inquired about famous quote by George San­tayana (in The Life of Rea­son, 1905): “Those who can­not remem­ber the past are con­demned to repeat it.” We know the quote was orig­i­nal­ly Santayana’s, but our patron would like to know when Mr. Churchill first used it. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, my col­league and I have not been able to locate the the time or con­text of quote as it relates to Mr. Churchill. —D.J., New York

I searched Churchill’s 15 mil­lion pub­lished words (books, arti­cles, speech­es, pri­vate papers) but could find no occur­rence of Santayana’s remark.…

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Churchill’s Phony “Success” Quotes

Churchill’s Phony “Success” Quotes

Wasn’t on Twit­ter 24 hours before encoun­ter­ing the two most pop­u­lar Churchill mis­quotes: (1) “Suc­cess is not final, fail­ure is not fatal: it is the courage to con­tin­ue that counts.” (2) “Suc­cess is the abil­i­ty to go from one fail­ure to anoth­er with no loss of enthusiasm.”

These pop up by the dozens every day; while includ­ed in some poor­ly researched quote books, nei­ther can be found among Churchill’s 50 mil­lion pub­lished books, arti­cles, speech­es and papers; and words about him by close col­leagues. They are also some­times ascribed (also with­out attri­bu­tion) to Abra­ham Lin­coln.…

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