Tag: Churchill quotes

index
“Member for Woodford”: Leslie Illingworth in “Punch,” 30 November 1949. As Churchill turned 75, still in the thick of politics, Illingworth crafted this eloquent tribute. (Reprinted by courtesy of Topfoto and Gary Stiles from his book, “Churchill in Punch”)
Coming: New Churchill Phrase Index in My Next Quotebook

Coming: New Churchill Phrase Index in My Next Quotebook

Coming from Hillsdale College Press, the new edition will carry a brand new title in keeping with its far larger content. Earlier editions contained 3500 quotations; they now total over 5000. Many new ones derive from The Churchill Documents, 1942 to 1965, also published by Hillsdale. The preliminary proofs total 736 pages, but that's without the indexes. These are being compiled by the award-winning lecturer Do Mi Stauber. 

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DeSantis
Governor DeSantis speaking in my home town, Staten Island, New York, 20 February 2023. (Wikimedia Commons)
Teapot Tempest: DeSantis Misquote Goes Viral

Teapot Tempest: DeSantis Misquote Goes Viral

Note! This post falls under the title "pedantry." As I said when Politifact asked: Who cares? Many fake Churchill quotes like Governor DeSantis uttered are honorable things for anyone to have said, and Churchill said many things like them. We like to keep the record straight, and we will keep doing the job of verifying. But these are not big questions, of which there are plenty. RML

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Notability
Notable and notorious: A collector’s item in 1900 was a postcard autographed by the most famous escapee from the Boers. (Photo by HJPrieß, Creative Commons)
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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war shame
Churchill to Moyne (circled): “We shall choose Shame, and then have War thrown in a little later.” Coalition ministers, May 1940. Standing L-R: Sir Archibald Sinclair, A.V. Alexander, Lord Cranborne. Herbert Morrison, Lord Moyne. Captain Margesson, Brendan Bracken. Seated L-R: Ernest Bevin, Lord Beaverbrook, Anthony Eden, Clement Attlee, Winston Churchill, Sir John Anderson, Arthur Greenwood, Sir Kingsley Wood. (Imperial War Museum / public domain)
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
WSC with President Bowman Ashe of the University of Miami, which presented him with an honorary Doctor of Law degree, 26 February 1946.
Success: What Churchill REALLY Said

Success: What Churchill REALLY Said

Churchill said much about success in life and politics, but he is frequently misquoted. But genuine expressions also exist. Here are some of the things that he actually said, confirmed in Churchill By Himself --in chronological order, with citations. (1: “You must put your head into the lion’s mouth if the performance is to be a success.”)

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king
The 2011 edition, “Churchill by Himself” (Ebury Press / Random House)
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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Today
Churchill at Harvard, 6 September 1943, with President James Conant. (Imperial War Museum, public domain)
Winston Churchill: Not Much to Say Today?

Winston Churchill: Not Much to Say Today?

Every turn of events has its unique features. Understanding them, and applying principles to them today, is still the challenge. The challenge for leaders today is to judge whether discretion should take priority over boldness, whether diplomacy is a feasible option, and when and where to deploy a bluff. In these areas, Churchill’s experience is an invaluable guide, because human nature is unchanging.

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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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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
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