Q: Genuine quotations?

I am try­ing to ver­i­fy three quo­ta­tions attrib­uted to Mr. Churchill. All three apply to pol­i­tics or politi­cians, and all are very rel­e­vant today. Can you assist? I saw them on Facebook.

1. “Youth is for free­dom and reform, matu­ri­ty for judi­cious com­pro­mise and old age is for sta­bil­i­ty and repose.”

2. “What is the use of Par­lia­ment if it is not the place where true state­ments can be brought before the peo­ple? …of send­ing Mem­bers to Par­lia­ment to say what they are told to say by Min­is­te­r­i­al plat­i­tude? What val­ue can we place on our par­lia­men­tary insti­tu­tions if con­stituen­cies return only lame, docile and sub­servient mem­bers who try to stamp on every form of inde­pen­dent judgement?”

3. “If you make ten thou­sand reg­u­la­tions you destroy all respect for the law.”

I can find no doc­u­men­ta­tion to sup­port these quo­ta­tions. Can you help me to ver­i­fy that they accu­rate, or mis­at­tri­bu­tions? —A.J., London

A: Yes to all three quotations

Facebook and Twit­ter (or “X” or what­ev­er it’s now called) are fonts of false Churchill quo­ta­tions. So thanks for ques­tion­ing these. Hap­pi­ly, all three quo­ta­tions are sound. From my book, Churchill by Him­self:

Life

Usu­al­ly youth is for free­dom and reform, matu­ri­ty for judi­cious com­pro­mise, and old age for sta­bil­i­ty and repose.

—Chap­ter 2, “Max­ims.” This is from Churchill’s essay, “Con­sis­ten­cy in Pol­i­tics,” Pall Mall, July 1927. WSC reprint­ed this piece in Thoughts and Adven­tures (Lon­don: Thorn­ton But­ter­worth, 1932, and many sub­se­quent edi­tions). We can all think of sev­er­al politi­cians who rich­ly deserve a peri­od of sta­bil­i­ty and repose.

Principle vs. Politics

What is the use of Par­lia­ment if it is not the place where true state­ments can be brought before the peo­ple? What is the use of send­ing Mem­bers to the House of Com­mons who say just the pop­u­lar things of the moment, and mere­ly endeav­our to give sat­is­fac­tion to the Gov­ern­ment Whips by cheer­ing loud­ly every Min­is­te­r­i­al plat­i­tude, and by walk­ing through the Lob­bies obliv­i­ous of the crit­i­cisms they hear? Peo­ple talk about our Par­lia­men­tary insti­tu­tions and Par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy; but if these are to sur­vive, it will not be because the Con­stituen­cies return tame, docile, sub­servient Mem­bers, and try to stamp out every form of inde­pen­dent judgment.

—Chap­ter 29, “Lead­er­ship,” from the House of Com­mons, 14 March 1939. That one seems not with­out con­sid­er­able rel­e­vance at the moment. Per­haps it’s always been relevant.

Free Market

If you destroy a free mar­ket you cre­ate a black mar­ket. If you make ten thou­sand reg­u­la­tions you destroy all respect for the law.

Three cor­rect quo­ta­tions in a row! This one is also in Chap­ter 2, “Max­ims,” from the House of Com­mons, 3 Feb­ru­ary 1949. Churchill was argu­ing against the sti­fling reg­u­la­tions of indus­try and com­merce by the post­war Labour Gov­ern­ment (1945-51). He thought they were exces­sive. We can only guess what he’d think of gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tions now.