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Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill Quotes

Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

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Famous Winston Churchill Quotes

“History's villains are more easily recognized in retrospect. In an article published in 1935 and reprinted in 1937, Winston Churchill expressed a curious ambivalence towards the German chancellor prior to the outbreak of war: We cannot tell whether Hitler will be the man who will once again let loose upon the world another war in which civilization will irretrievably succumb, or whether he will go down in history as the man who restored honour and peace of mind to the great Germanic nation. . . .”

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Author:Winston Churchill
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“Danger gathers upon our path. We cannot afford - we have no right - to look back. We must look forward... The stronger the advocate of monarchical principle a man may be, the more zealously he must now endeavor to fortify the Throne and to give to His Majesty's successor that strength which can only come from the love of a united nation and Empire.”

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Author:Winston Churchill
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“The day may dawn when fair play, love for one's fellow men, respect for justice and freedom, will enable tormented generations to march forth serene and triumphant from the hideous epoch in which we have to dwell. Meanwhile, never flinch, never weary, never despair.”

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Book:Churchill speaks: Winston S. Churchill in peace and war : collected speeches, 1897-1963
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“Unless some effective world supergovernment for the purpose of preventing war can be set up ... the prospects for peace and human progress are dark ....If .... it is found possible to build a world organization of irresistible force and inviolable authority for the purpose of securing peace, there are no limits to the blessings which all men enjoy and share.”

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Author:Winston Churchill
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“He sees with amazement that our defeats are but the stepping stones to victory and that all his victories are stepping stones to ruin. It was apparent to me that this bad man saw quite clearly the shadow of slowly and remorselessly approaching doom, and he railed at fortune for mocking him with the glitter of fleeting success.”

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Book:Great destiny: sixty years of the memorable events in the life of the man of the century recounted in his own incomparable words
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“Hope has returned to the hearts of scores of millions of men and women, and with that hope there burns the flame of anger against the brutal, corrupt invader ... In a dozen famous ancient States now prostrate under the Nazi yoke, the masses of the people ... await the hour of liberation ... That hour will strike, and its solemn peal will proclaim that the night is past and that the dawn has come.”

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Book:War Speeches: From June 25, 1941 to September 6, 1943
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“We sit in calm, airy, silent rooms opening upon sunlit and embowered lawns, not a sound except of summer and of husbandry disturbs the peace; but seven million men, any ten thousand of whom could have annihilated the ancient armies, are in ceaseless battle from the Alps to the Ocean.”

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Book:Sir Winston Churchill: a self-portrait
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“Nobody ever launched an attack without having misgivings beforehand, You ought to have misgivings before; but when the moment of action is come, the hour of misgivings is passed. It is often not possible to go backward from a course which has been adopted in war. A man must answer "Aye" or "No" to the great questions which are put, and by that decision he must be bound.”

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Book:Churchill speaks: Winston S. Churchill in peace and war : collected speeches, 1897-1963
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“When great causes are on the move in the world, stirring all men's souls, drawing them from their firesides, casting aside comfort, wealth and the pursuit of happiness in response to impulses at once awe-striking and irresistible, we learn that we are spirits, not animals.”

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Book:The Churchill War Papers: The Ever-Widening War 1941
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“Now at last the slowly gathered, long-pent-up fury of the storm broke upon us. Four or five millions of men met each other in the first shock of the most merciless of all the wars of which record has been kept.”

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Book:Memoirs of the Second World War: An Abridgement of the Six Volumes of the Second World War
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“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 the point.”

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Book:Churchill: The Power of Words
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“We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.”

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Author:Winston Churchill
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“You see these dictators up on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. They're afraid of words and thought. ... They make frantic efforts to bar our thoughts and words. ... A state of society where men may not speak their mind - where children denounce their parents to the police - where a businessman or small shopkeeper ruins his competitor by telling tales about his private opinion. Such a state of society cannot long endure if it is continually in contact with the healthy outside world.”

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Author:Winston Churchill
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