Transwiki:Winston Churchill

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Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, K.G. (November 30, 1874 - January 24, 1965), a British politician, best known as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during World War II.

[edit] Famous Quotes

  • "We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." (radio broadcast on June 4 1940). In the middle of this quote, during the applause, Churchill whispered to an aide, "and we shall fight with the butt end of broken beer bottles because that's bloody well all we've got."
  • "Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years men will still say 'This was their finest hour'" (speech to the House of Commons on June 18 1940).
  • On the RAF during the Battle of Britain: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few" (speech to the House of Commons on August 20 1940).

[edit] Other Quotes

  • "First there are the Jews who, dwelling in every country throughout the world, identify themselves with that country, enter into its national life, and, while adhering faithfully to their own religion, regard themselves as citizens in the fullest sense of the State which has received them...In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their fathers...This worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation...has steadily growing" -- Writing on 'Zionism versus Bolshevism' in the Illustrated Sunday Herald, February 1920
  • Churchill on poison gas: Churchill is often quoted out of context on this subject. The full quote, rarely published in entirety was: "I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected." War Office Departmental Minute, 12 May 1919, Churchill Papers 16/16, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge. (Clearly Churchill distinguished between the deadly gas of World War II and the tear gas he proposed to use against "uncivilised tribes.")
  • "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery."
  • Churchill on race:
"I do not admit... that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia... by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race... has come in and taken its place." -Churchill to Palestine Royal Commission, 1937
"What is the true and original root of Dutch [South African Boer] aversion to British rule? It is the abiding fear and hatred of the movement that seeks to place the native on a level with the white man...the Kaffir is to be declared the brother of the European, to be constituted his legal equal, to be armed with a political rights." -London to Ladysmith via Pretoria, 1900
  • Gandhi:
"It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer of the type well-known in the East, now posing as a fakir, striding half naked up the steps of the Viceregal palace to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor." -Commenting on Gandhi's meeting with the Viceroy of India, 1931 **NOTE: Much later, when the India Bill had passed despite Churchill's opposition, Churchill sent this message for Gandhi through a mutual friend: "Mr Gandhi has gone very high in my esteem since he stood up for the untouchables...I do not care whether you are more or less loyal to Great Britain...Tell Mr Gandhi to use the powers that are offered and make the thing a success." -Churchill to G.D. Birla, 1935, in Gilbert, "Winston S. Churchill," vol. 5 (London: Heinemann 1977), page 618.
  • "(We must rally against) a poisoned Russia, an infected Russia of armed hordes not only smiting with bayonet and cannon, but accompanied and preceded by swarms of typhus-bearing vermin." -- Quoted in the Boston Review, April/May 2001
  • Churchill (typical of the thinking of many at the time - whether this makes it any less repugnant and sickening is arguable) wanted to sterilize the mental ill: "The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate... I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed." -- Churchill to Asquith, 1910
  • Churchill wrote an article, "Hitler and His Choice": "One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations." But Churchill cautioned: "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 down in history as the man who restored honour and peace of mind to the Great Germanic nation.” -First published in The Strand Magazine, November 1935, when Hitler was still within Germany's borders.
  • Churchill on the Irish spectre, horrid and inexorcisable: "The choice was clearly open: crush them with vain and unstinted force, or try to give them what they want. These were the only alternatives and most people were unprepared for either. Here indeed was the Irish spectre - horrid and inexorcisable." -- Writing in The World Crisis and the Aftermath, 1923-31

[edit] Wit

Churchill is known as a great wit as well as a politician.

  • Nancy Astor once told him "If I were your wife I'd poison your coffee," to which Churchill replied: "If I were your husband, madam, I would drink it."
  • He received a report from Admiral Pound, whom Churchill did not rate. On the report he wrote "Pennywise" - a reference to the old adage, "Penny wise and pound foolish."
  • On Stanley Baldwin: "He occasionally stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened."
  • On Clement Attlee:
    • "A sheep in sheeps' clothing."
    • "A modest man, who has much to be modest about."
    • "An empty taxi arrived at 10 Downing Street, and when the door opened, Attlee got out."
  • On being told by Bessie Braddock MP: "Winston, You're drunk!" he replied "Bessie, You're ugly. But in the morning I shall be sober."
  • On being told by an MP that his fly was open: "It is of no account, after all, dead birds do not fall from their nests."
  • "I am prepared to meet my maker. Whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
  • Written in the margin of a memo objecting to a preposition at the end of a sentence, "This is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put." [1]
  • When told by a man in the street that his fly was half open he seid "or perhaps it it is half closed" then continued walking down the street.
  • Upon being offered The Order Of the Garter after a particularly humiliating defeat in the election of 1945: "Why should I accept the Order of the Garter, when I have already been given the Order of the Boot?"
  • Once, when Churchill was sleeping on a train, a woman came in and noticed his fly was open. She said "Mr, your penis is sticking out!". Churchill awoke, and answered: "Madam, don't flatter yourself. It is merely hanging out."


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