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The Air Is An Extremely Dangerous, Jealous And Exacting Mistress. Once Under The Spell Most Lovers Are Faithful To The End, Which Is Not Always Old Age. Even Those Masters And Princes Of Aerial Fighting, The Survivors Of Fifty Mortal Duels In The High Air Who Have Come Scatheless Through The War And All Its Perils, Have Returned Again And Again To Their Love And Perished Too Often In Some Ordinary Commonplace Flight Undertaken For Pure Amusement.

-Winston Churchill

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The Air Is An

Winston Churchill

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The Air Is An Extremely Dangerous, Jealous And Exacting Mistress. Once Under The Spell Most Lovers Are Faithful To The End, Which Is Not Always Old Age. Even Those Masters And Princes Of Aerial Fighting, The Survivors Of Fifty Mortal Duels In The High Air Who Have Come Scatheless Through The War And All Its Perils, Have Returned Again And Again To Their Love And Perished Too Often In Some Ordinary Commonplace Flight Undertaken For Pure Amusement.

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If You Find Something You Really Love, You Will Never Work Again.

Danger, If Met Head On, Can Be Nearly Halved

Broadly Speaking, Human Beings May Be Divided Into Three Classes: Those Who Are Billed To Death, Those Who Are Worried To Death, And Those Who Are Bored To Death.

Sure I Am Of This, That You Have Only To Endure To Conquer.

I Never Slept As Soundly As The Night Following Pearl Harbor. For I Knew That The American Race Would Now Be Entering The War And It Would Never Be The Same.

If You Cannot Read All Your Books, At Any Rate Handle Them, And, As It Were, Fondle Them. Let Them Fall Open Where They Will. Make A Voyage Of Discovery, Taking Soundings Of Uncharted Seas.

Do Not Turn The Superior Eye Of Critical Passivity Upon These Efforts .... We Must Not Be Ambitious. We Cannot Aspire To Masterpieces. We May Content Ourselves With A Joy Ride In A Paint-box.

A Single Glass Of Champagne Imparts A Feeling Of Exhilaration. The Nerves Are Braced; The Imagination Is Stirred, The Wits Become More Nimble.

Champagne Drinking

Everything Trends Towards Catastrophe & Collapse. I Am Interested, Geared Up & Happy. Is It Not Horrible To Be Built Like That?

Even The Most Eminent Persons Are Subject To The Laws Of Gravity.

Meeting Franklin Roosevelt Was Like Opening Your First Bottle Of Champagne; Knowing Him Was Like Drinking It.

A Man Who Gets The Reputation Of Rising At Dawn Can Sleep To Noon.

The United States Stands At The Pinnacle Of World Power. This Is A Solemn Moment For The American Democracy. For With Primacy In Power Is Joined An Awe-inspiring Accountability For The Future.

Never Give In. Never Give In. Never, Never, Never, Never -- In Nothing, Great Or Small, Large Or Petty -- Never Give In, Except To Convictions Of Honor And Good Sense.

A Love Of Tradition Has Never Weakened A Nation.

Time Passes Swiftly, But Is It Not Joyous To See How Great And Growing Is The Treasure We Have Gathered Together, Amid The Storms And Stresses Of So Many Eventful And To Millions Tragic And Terrible Years?

It Is Not Given To Human Beings, Happily For Them, For Otherwise Life Would Be Intolerable, To Foresee Or To Predict To Any Large Extent The Unfolding Course Of Events.

Never Give In Except To Convictions Of Honour And Good Sense. Never Yield To Force; Never Yield To The Apparently Overwhelming Might Of The Enemy.

If You Will Not Fight For Right When You Can Easily Win Without Bloodshed; If You Will Not Fight When Your Victory Will Be Sure And Not Too Costly; You May Come To The Moment When You Will Have To Fight With All Odds Against You And Only A Precarious Chance Of Survival. There May Be Even A Worse Fate, You May Have To Fight When There Is No Hope Of Victory, Because It Is Better To Perish Than To Live As Slaves.

There Is No Working Middle Course In Wartime.

One Does Not Leave A Convivial Party Before Closing Time.

Sir, We Must Beware Of Needless Innovation, Especially When Guided By Logic.

This Is No Time For Ease And Comfort. It Is Time To Dare And Endure.

We Proceeded Systematically, Village By Village And We Destroyed The Houses, Filled Up The Wells, Blew Down The Towers, Cut Down The Shady Trees, Burned The Crops And Broke The Reservoirs In Punitive Devastation.

It Helps To Write Down Half A Dozen Things Which Are Worrying Me. Two Of Them, Say, Disappear; About Two Of Them Nothing Can Be Done, So It's No Use Worrying; And Two Perhaps Can Be Settled.

I Expect You Will Find That Change Is The Best Kind Of Rest.

Americans Always Do The Right Thing, Once They Have Exhausted All Other Possibilities.

It Is Better To Do The Wrong Thing That To Do Nothing.

Let Us Reconcile Ourselves To The Mysterious Rhythm Of Our Destinies, Such As They Must Be In This World Of Space And Time.

Now This Is Not The End. It Is Not Even The Beginning Of The End. But It Is, Perhaps, The End Of The Beginning.

To Achieve The Extirpation Of Nazi Tyranny There Are No Lengths Of Violence To Which We Will Not Go.

An Optimist Sees The Oportunity In Every Difficulty.

History With Its Flickering Lamp Stumbles Along The Trail Of The Past, Trying To Reconstruct Its Scenes, To Revive Its Echoes, And Kindle With Pale Gleams The Passion Of Former Days.

Science Should Be On Tap, Not On Top.

Nowadays We Are Assailed By A Chorus Of Horrid Threats. The Nazi Government Exudes Through Every Neutral State Inside Information Of The Frightful Vengeance They Are Going To Wreak Upon Us, And They Also Bawl It Around The World By Their Leather-lunged Propaganda Machine. If Words Could Kill, We Should Be Dead Already.

The Statesman Who Yields To War Fever Must Realise That Once The Signal Is Given, He Is No Longer The Master Of Policy But The Slave Of Unforeseeable And Uncontrollable Events.

I Have Benefited Greatly From Criticism, And At No Time Have I Suffered A Lack Thereof.

If You Have An Important Point To Make, Don't Try To Be Subtle Or Clever. Use A Pile Driver. Hit The Point Once. Then Come Back And Hit It Again. Then Hit It A Third Time - A Tremendous Whack.

If The Present Tries To Sit In Judgment Of The Past, It Will Lose The Future.

One Evening At Chequers The Film Was Oliver Twist. Rufus, As Usual, Had The Best Seat In The House, On His Master's Lap. At The Point When Bill Sikes Was About To Drown His Dog To Put The Police Off His Track, Churchill Covered Rufus's Eyes With His Hand. He Said, "don't Look Now, Dear. I'll Tell You About It Afterwards."

I Am Convinced That There Is No Smarter, Handier, Or More Adaptable Body Of Troops In The World.

I Do Not Understand The Squeamishness About The Use Of Gas. I Am Strongly In Favour Of Using Poisonous Gas Against Uncivilized Tribes.

The Short Words Are Best, And The Old Words, When Short, Are The Best Of All.

Nothing Is More Dangerous In Wartime Than To Live In The Temperamental Atmosphere Of A Gallup Poll, Always Feeling Ones Pulse And Taking Ones Temperature. I See That A Speaker At The Week-end Said That This Was A Time When Leaders Should Keep Their Ears To The Ground. All I Can Say Is That The British Nation Will Find It Very Hard To Look Up To Leaders Who Are Detected In That Somewhat Ungainly Posture.

We Must Be United, We Must Be Undaunted, We Must Be Inflexible. Our Qualities And Deeds Must Burn And Glow Through The Gloom Oeurope Until They Become The Veritable Beacon Oits Salvation.

These Cruel, Wanton, Indiscriminate Bombings Of London Are, Of Course, A Part Of Hitler's Invasion Plans. He Hopes, By Killing Large Numbers Of Civilians, And Women And Children, That He Will Terrorise And Cow The People Of This Mighty Imperial City ... Little Does He Know The Spirit Of The British Nation, Or The Tough Fibre Of The Londoners.

When The Eagles Are Silent, The Parrots Begin To Jabber.

When We Judge Or Criticize Another Person, It Says Nothing About That Person; It Merely Says Something About Our Own Need To Be Critical.

The Person Must Be Blind, Indeed, Who Can Not See, That Here On Earth A Great Project, A Great Plan, Is Executed, May Work On The Realization Of Which We Participate As Faithful Servants.

Faithful Servants

If The Past Sits In Judgment On The Present, The Future Will Be Lost.

We Shall Not Fail Or Falter; We Shall Not Weaken Or Tire. Neither The Sudden Shock Of Battle, Nor The Long-drawn Trials Of Vigilance And Exertion Will Wear Us Down. Give Us The Tools And We Will Finish The Job.

Success And Happiness Spring From Facing Failure After Failure With Enthusiasm.

Decided Only To Be Undecided, Resolved To Be Irresolute, Adamant For Drift, Solid For Fluidity, All-powerful To Be Impotent.

If The Almighty Were To Rebuild The World And Asked Me For Advice, I Would Have English Channels Round Every Country. And The Atmosphere Would Be Such That Anything Which Attempted To Fly Would Be Set On Fire.

Manifest Destiny Was On The March, And It Was Unfortunate That Mexico Stood In The Path.

Men Occasionally Stumble Over The Truth, But Most Of Them Pick Themselves Up And Hurry Off As If Nothing Had Happened.

It Is Always More Easy To Discover And Proclaim General Principles Than It Is To Apply Them.

He Looks Like A Female Llama Who Has Been Surprised In The Bath.

My Conclusion On Freewill And Predestination- They Are Identical.

Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste

...the High Roads Of The Future Will Be Clear, Not Only For Us But For All, Not Only For Our Time But For A Century To Come.

Writing ... It Begins As An Amusement, Then It Becomes A Mistress, Then A Master, And Finally A Tyrant.

I Am Not Invested With Dictatorial Powers. If I Were, I Should Be Quite Ready To Dictate.

All The Great Things Are Simple, And Many Can Be Expressed In A Single Word: Freedom, Justice, Honor, Duty, Mercy, Hope.

Courage Is The Ability To Go From Failure To Failure With Enthusiasm.

In Finance Everything That Is Agreeable Is Unsound And Everything That Is Sound Is Disagreeable.

May It Not Also Be That The Cause Of Civilization Itself Will Be Defended By The Skill And Devotion Of A Few Thousand Airmen? There Never Has Been, I Suppose, In All The World, In All The History Of War, Such An Opportunity For Youth. The Knights Of The Round Table, The Crusaders, All Fall Back Into The Past.

Democracy Means That If The Doorbell Rings In The Early Hours, It Is Likely To Be The Milkman.

The Main Vice Of Capitalism Is The Uneven Distribution Of Prosperity. The Main Vice Of Socialism Is The Even Distribution Of Misery.

Never Hold Discussions With The Monkey When The Organ Grinder Is In The Room.

A Lie Gets Halfway Around The World Before The Truth Has A Chance To Get Its Pants On.

It Is Not Always Possible To Have Everything Go As One Likes. In Working With Allies, It Sometimes Happens That They Develop Opinions Of Their Own

You Don't Make The Poor Richer By Making The Rich Poorer.

It Was Evident However That The Lawyers Would Have To Have Their Say....this Also Opened Up A Vista Both Lengthy And Obscure.

We Hoped To Land A Wild Cat That Would Tear Out The Bowels Of The Boche. Instead We Have Stranded A Vast Whale With Its Tail Flopping About In The Water.

Just To Paint Is Great Fun. The Colours Are Lovely To Look At And Delicious To Squeeze Out. Matching Them, However Crudely, With What You See Is Fascinating And Absolutely Absorbing.

No One Saves Us But Ourselves. No One Can And No One May. We Ourselves Must Walk The Path. Some Of Us Think Holding On Makes Us Strong; But Sometimes It Is Letting Go. Continuous Effort - Not Strength Or Intelligence - Is The Key To Unlocking Our Potential.

From Stettin In The Baltic To Trieste In The Atlantic, An Iron Curtain Has Descended Across The Continent. Behind The Line Lie All The Capitals Of The Ancient States Of Central And Eastern Europe... All These Famous Cities And The Populations Around Them Lie In What I Must Call The Soviet Sphere, And All Are Subject In One Form Or Another, Not Only To Soviet Influence But To A Very High And, In Many Cases, Increasing Measure Of Control From Moscow.

Some People Did Not Like This Ceremonious Style. But After All When You Have To Kill A Man It Costs Nothing To Be Polite.

Soviet Union Foreign Policy Is A Puzzle Inside A Riddle Wrapped In An Enigma, And The Key Is Russian Nationalism.

When I Am Abroad, I Always Make It A Rule Never To Criticize Or Attack The Government Of My Own Country. I Make Up For Lost Time When I Come Home.

It Is Arguable Whether The Human Race Have Been Gainers By The March Of Science Beyond The Steam Engine. Electricity Opens A Field Of Infinite Conveniences To Ever Greater Numbers, But They May Well Have To Pay Dearly For Them. But Anyhow In My Thought I Stop Short Of The Internal Combustion Engine Which Has Made The World So Much Smaller. Still More Must We Fear The Consequences Of Entrusting A Human Race So Little Different From Their Predecessors Of The So-called Barbarous Ages Such Awful Agencies As The Atomic Bomb. Give Me The Horse.

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.

Death And Sorrow Will Be The Companions Of Our Journey; Hardship Our Garment; Constancy And Valor Our Only Shield. We Must Be United, We Must Be Undaunted, We Must Be Inflexible.

Never, Ever Ever Ever Ever Give Up.

The Fact That In Mohammedan Law Every Woman Must Belong To Some Man As His Absolute Property - Either As A Child, A Wife, Or A Concubine - Must Delay The Final Extinction Of Slavery Until The Faith Of Islam Has Ceased To Be A Great Power Among Men.

No Socialist Government Conducting The Entire Life And Industry Of The Country Could Afford To Allow Free, Sharp Or Violently Worded Expressions Of Public Discontent. They Would Have To Fall Back On Some Form Of Gestapo, No Doubt Very Humanly Directed In The First Instance.

Socialist Government

War, Which Used To Be Cruel And Magnificent Has Now Become Cruel And Squalid.

How Dreadful Are The Curses Which Mohammedanism Lays On Its Votaries! Besides The Fanatical Frenzy, Which Is As Dangerous In A Man As Hydrophobia In A Dog, There Is A Fateful Fatalistic Apathy.

There's No Such Thing As A Good Tax.

The Greatest Advances In Human Civilization Have Come When We Recovered What We Had Lost: When We Learned The Lessons Of History.

Everyone Has His Day And Some Days Last Longer Than Others.

The Price Of Greatness Is Responsibility.

I Propose That 100,000 Degenerate Britons Should Be Forcibly Sterilized And Others Put In Labour Camps To Halt The Decline Of The British Race.

Mr. Attlee Is A Very Modest Man. Indeed He Has A Lot To Be Modest About.

Socialism Needs To Pull Down Wealth; Liberalism Seeks To Raise Up Poverty. Socialism Would Destroy Private Interests, Liberalism Would Preserve [them] ... By Reconciling Them With Public Right. Socialism Would Kill Enterprise; Liberalism Would Rescue Enterprise From The Trammels Of Privilege And Preference. Socialism Assails The Preeminence Of The Individual; Liberalism Seeks ... To Build Up A Minimum Standard For The Mass. Socialism Exalts The Rule; Liberalism Exalts The Man. Socialism Attacks Capitalism; Liberalism Attacks Monopoly.

The Substitution Of The Internal Combustion Engine For The Horse Marked A Very Gloomy Milestone In The Progress Of Mankind.

We Must Be Very Careful Not To Assign This Deliverance The Attributes Of A Victory. Wars Are Not Won By Evacuations

Study History, Study History. In History Lie All The Secrets Of Statecraft.

It Has Not Fallen To Your Lot To Command Great Armies. You Had To Create Them, Organize Them And Inspire Them.

Every Day You May Make Progress. Every Step May Be Fruitful. Yet There Will Stretch Out Before You An Ever-lengthening, Ever-ascending, Ever-improving Path. You Know You Will Never Get To The End Of The Journey. But This, So Far From Discouraging, Only Adds To The Joy And Glory Of The Climb.

I Will Not Pretend That If I Had To Choose Between Communism And Nazism I Would Choose Communism.

'no Comment' Is A Splendid Expression. I Am Using It Again And Again.

If The Human Race Wishes To Have A Prolonged And Indefinite Period Of Material Prosperity, They Have Only Got To Behave In A Peaceful And Helpful Way Toward One Another.

We Shall Show Mercy, But We Shall Not Ask For It.

Some Civil Servants Are Neither Servants Nor Civil.

A Fanatic Is One Who Can't Change His Mind And Won't Change The Subject.

The World Today Is Ruled By Harassed Politicians Absorbed In Getting Into Office Or Turning Out The Other Man So That Not Much Room Is Left For Debating The Great Issues On Their Merits

The Air Is An Extremely Dangerous, Jealous And Exacting Mistress. Once Under The Spell Most Lovers Are Faithful To The End, Which Is Not Always Old Age. Even Those Masters And Princes Of Aerial Fighting, The Survivors Of Fifty Mortal Duels In The High Air Who Have Come Scatheless Through The War And All Its Perils, Have Returned Again And Again To Their Love And Perished Too Often In Some Ordinary Commonplace Flight Undertaken For Pure Amusement.

If Tonight Our People Were Asked To Cast Their Vote Whether A Convention Should Be Entered Into To Stop The Bombing Of Cities, The Overwhelming Majority Would Cry, "we Will Mete Out To Them [the Germans] The Measure, And More Than The Measure, That They Have Meted Out To Us... We Will Have No Truce Or Parley With You, Or The Grisly Gang Who Work Your Wicked Will. You Do Your Worst - And We Will Do Our Best."

I Have Left The Obvious, Essential Fact To This Point, Namely, That It Is The Russian Armies Who Have Done The Main Work In Tearing The Guts Out Of The German Army. In The Air And On The Oceans We Could Maintain Our Place, But There Was No Force In The World Which Could Have Been Called Into Being, Except After Several More Years, That Would Have Been Able To Maul And Break The German Army Unless It Had Been Subjected To The Terrible Slaughter And Manhandling That Has Fallen To It Through The Strength Of The Russian Soviet Armies.

We Must Learn From Misfortune The Means Of Future Strength.

I Look Like A Down-and-out Drunk Who Has Been Picked Out Of The Gutter In The Strand.

Most People Hate The Taste Of Beer - To Begin With. It Is, However, A Prejudice That Many People Have Been Able To Overcome.

How I Hated Schools, And What A Life Of Anxiety I Lived There. I Counted The Hours To The End Of Every Term, When I Should Return Home.

Sunshine Is My Quest.

The Vistas Of Possibility Are Only Limited By The Shortness Of Life.

Shortness Of Life

All Wisdom Is Not New Wisdom.

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.

Everybody Has Always Underrated The Russians. They Keep Their Own Secrets Alike From Foe And Friends.

It Is All True, Or It Ought To Be; And More And Better Besides.

Before Alamein We Never Had A Victory. After Alamein We Never Had A Defeat.

There Is, Therefore, Wisdom In Reserving One's Decisions As Long As Possible And Until All The Facts And Forces That Will Be Potent At The Moment Are Revealed.

Those Who Can Win A War Well Can Rarely Make A Good Peace And Those Who Could Make A Good Peace Would Never Have Won The War.

In Handing Over The Government Of India To These So-called Political Classes, We Are Handing Over To Men Of Straw, Of Whom, In A Few Years, No Trace Will Remain.

Always Remember, However Sure You Are That You Could Easily Win, That There Would Not Be A War If The Other Man Did Not Think He Also Had A Chance.

The Influence Exercised Over The Human Mind By Apt Analogies Is And Has Always Been Immense. Whether They Translate An Established Truth Into Simple Language Or Whether They Adventurously Aspire To Reveal The Unknown, They Are Among The Most Formidable Weapons Of The Rhetorician.

I Know Of No Case Where A Man Added To His Dignity By Standing On It.

I Always Seem To Get Inspiration And Renewed Vitality By Contact With This Great Novel Land Of Yours Which Sticks Up Out Of The Atlantic.

Writing A Book Is An Adventure. To Begin With It Is A Toy And An Amusement. Then It Becomes A Mistress, Then It Becomes A Master, Then It Becomes A Tyrant. The Last Phase Is That Just As You Are About To Be Reconciled To Your Servitude, You Kill The Monster And Fling Him To The Public.

The Is Always Much To Be Said For Not Attempting More Than You Can Do And For Making A Certainty Of What You Try. But This Principle, Like Others In Life And War, Has It Exceptions.

In Great Britain, Governments Often Change Their Policies Without Changing Their Men. In France, They Usually Change Their Men Without Changing Their Policy.

The Maxim, "nothing Prevails But Perfection," May Be Spelled Paralysis.

In My Experience Of Large Enterprises, I Have Found It Is Often A Mistake To Try To Settle Everything At Once.

I Have Never Promised Anything But Blood, Tears, Toil And Sweat. Now, However We Have A New Experience. We Have A Victory - A Remarkable And Definite Victory. The Bright Gleam Has Caught The Helmets Of Our Soldiers And Warmed And Cheered All Our Hearts.

New Experiences

To Build May Have To Be The Slow And Laborious Task Of Years. To Destroy Can Be The Thoughtless Act Of A Single Day.

The Future Is Unknowable, But The Past Should Give Us Hope.

Men Will Forgive A Man Anything Except Bad Prose.

... I Think It Would Be So Much Better For Me To Learn Something Which Would Be Useful To Me In The Army, As Well As Affording Me Exercise And Amusement.

It Was My Ambition All Of My Life To Be Master Of The Spoken Word.

Who Is Not Liberal When Young, Does Not Have A Heart. Who Is Not Conservative When Old, Does Not Have A Brain.

Anyone Can Rat, But It Takes A Certain Amount Of Ingenuity To Re-rat.

The Times Is Speechless, And Takes Three Columns To Express Its Speechlessness.

In War, The Truth Must Be Guarded By A Body Guard Of Lies.

Never Give In, Never! Be It Concerning Large Things Or Small Things, Never, Never, Never!

You May Have To Fight When There Is No Hope Of Victory, Because It Is Better To Perish Than Live As Slaves.

Odds Against You

I Had A Feeling Once About Mathematics - That I Saw It All. Depth Beyond Depth Was Revealed To Me - The Byss And Abyss. I Saw - As One Might See The Transit Of Venus Or Even The Lord Mayor's Show - A Quantity Passing Through Infinity And Changing Its Sign From Plus To Minus. I Saw Exactly Why It Happened And Why The Tergiversation Was Inevitable But It Was After Dinner And I Let It Go.

The Reserve Of Modern Assertions Is Sometimes Pushed To Extremes, In Which The Fear Of Being Contradicted Leads The Writer To Strip Himself Of Almost All Sense And Meaning.

Of All The Talents Bestowed Upon Men, None Is So Precious As The Gift Of Oratory !!

Without Courage All Other Virtues Lose Their Meaning.

The Jury System Has Come To Stand For All We Mean By English Justice. The Scrutiny Of 12 Honest Jurors Provides Defendants And Plaintiffs Alike A Safeguard From Arbitrary Perversion Of The Law.

[the Balkans] Produce More History Than They Can Consume.

The Poodle [rufus] Ate In The Dining Room With The Rest Of The [churchill] Family. A Cloth Was Laid For Him On The Persian Carpet Beside The Head Of The Household, And No One Else Ate Until The Butler Had Served Rufus's Meal.

Never Pass Up The Chance To Sit Down Or Go To The Bathroom.

If Europe Were Once United In The Sharing Of Its Common Inheritance There Would Be No Limit To The Happiness, The Prosperity, And The Glory Which Its Three Or Four Million People Would Enjoy.

Now At This Very Moment I Knew That The United States Was In The War, Up To The Neck And In To The Death. So We Had Won After All! ... How Long The War Would Last Or In What Fashion It Would End No Man Could Tell, Nor Did I At This Moment Care ... We Should Not Be Wiped Out. Our History Would Not Come To An End ... Hitler's Fate Was Sealed. Mussolini's Fate Was Sealed. As For The Japanese, They Would Be Ground To A Powder. All The Rest Was Merely The Proper Application Of Overwhelming Force.

History Unfolds Itself By Strange And Unpredictable Paths. We Have Little Control Over The Future; And None At All Over The Past.

What Kind Of People Do They [the Japanese] Think We Are?

Success Is Not Final, Failure Is Not Fatal: It Is The Courage To Continue That Counts.

I Was Very Glad That Mr. Attlee Described My Speeches In The War As Expressing The Will Not Only Of Parliament But Of The Whole Nation. Their Will Was Resolute And Remorseless And, As It Proved, Unconquerable. It Fell To Me To Express It, And If I Found The Right Words You Must Remember That I Have Always Earned My Living By My Pen And By My Tongue. It Was A Nation And Race Dwelling All Round The Globe That Had The Lion Heart. I Had The Luck To Be Called Upon To Give The Roar.

There Are Plenty Of Good Ideas, If Only They Can Be Backed With The Power Of Action.

History Is Written By The Victors.

The Chief Aim Of Wisdom Is To Enable One To Bear With The Stupidity Of The Ignorant.

[much] As War Attracts Me And Fascinates My Mind With Its Tremendous Situations, I Feel More Deeply Every Year . . . What Vile And Wicked Folly And Barbarism It All Is.

Politics Is Like Waking Up In The Morning. You Never Know Whose Head You'll Find On The Pillow.

Arm Yourselves, And Be Ye Men Of Valor, And Be In Readiness For The Conflict; For It Is Better For Us To Perish In Battle Than To Look Upon The Outrage Of Our Nation And Our Altar.

No Matter. The Dead Bird Does Not Leave The Nest.

It Cannot In The Opinion Of His Majesty's Government Be Classified As Slavery In The Extreme Acceptance Of The Word Without Some Risk Of Terminological Inexactitude.

My Mother Made A Brilliant Impression Upon My Childhood Life. She Shone For Me Like The Evening Star.

I Will Begin By Saying What Everybody Would Like To Ignore Or Forget... We Have Sustained A Total And Unmitigated Defeat... All Is Over. Silent, Mournful, Abandoned, Broken, Czechoslovakia Recedes Into The Darkness... We Are In The Presence Of A Disaster Of The First Magnitude Which Has Befallen Great Britain And France. Do Not Let Us Blind Ourselves To That... Do Not Suppose That This Is The End. This Is Only The Beginning Of The Reckoning.

In War It Does Not Matter Who Is Right, But Who Is Left.

To Sit At One's Table On A Sunny Morning, With Four Clear Hours Of Uninterruptible Security, Plenty Of Nice White Paper, And A Squeezer Pen - That Is True Happiness.

Out Of Intense Complexities Intense Simplicities Emerge. Broadly Speaking, The Short Words Are The Best, And The Old Words When Short Are Best Of All.

Unless Some Effective Supranational Government Can Be Set Up And Brought Quickly Into Action, The Prospects Of Peace And Human Progress Are Dark And Doubtful.

If I Had My Way, I Would Write The Word 'insure' Over Every Door Of Every Cottage And Upon The Blotting Pad Of Every Public Man, Because I Am Convinced That, For Sacrifice That Are Conceivably Small, Families Can Be Secured Against Catastrophes Which Otherwise Would Smash Them Forever.

When I Find A Ladybug I Ask The Butler To Take It Outside Instead Of Killing It.

I Do Not See Any Other Way Of Realizing Our Hopes About World Organization In Five Or Six Days. Even The Almighty Took Seven.

Fancy Living In One Of These Streets, Never Seeing Anything Beautiful, Never Eating Anything Savoury, Never Saying Anything Clever!

If You Simply Take Up The Attitude Of Defending A Mistake, There Will No Hope Of Improvement.

Healthy Citizens Are The Greatest Asset Any Country Can Have.

The Monarchy Is So Extraordinarily Useful. When Britain Wins A Battle She Shouts, God Save The Queen; When She Loses, She Votes Down The Prime Minister.

The Dictator, In All His Pride, Is Held In The Grip Of His Party Machine. He Can Go Forward; He Cannot Go Back. He Must Blood His Hounds And Show Them Sport, Or Else, Like Actaeon Of Old, Be Devoured By Them. All-strong Without, He Is All-weak Within.

The Only Thing Wrong With Christianity Is The Lack Of Suffering.

One Of The Most Important Signs Of The Existence Of A Democracy Is That When There Is A Knock At The Door At 5 In The Morning, One Is Completely Certain That It Is The Milkman.

I Have Been Brought Up And Trained To Have The Utmost Contempt For People Who Get Drunk.

You Were Given The Choice Between War And Dishonor. You Chose Dishonor And You Will Have War.

Never, Never, Never Believe Any War Will Be Smooth And Easy, Or That Anyone Who Embarks On The Strange Voyage Can Measure The Tides And Hurricanes He Will Encounter. The Statesman Who Yields To War Fever Must Realize That Once The Signal Is Given, He Is No Longer The Master Of Policy But The Slave Of Unforeseeable And Uncontrollable Events.

However Beautiful The Strategy, You Should Occasionally Look At The Results.

Better To Dare Mighty Things And Fail Than To Live In A Grey Twilight Where There Is Neither Victory Nor Defeat.

If One Has To Submit, It Is Wasteful Not To Do So With The Best Grace Possible.

Mountaintops Inspire Leaders But Valleys Mature Them.

We Would Rather See London Laid In Ruins And Ashes Than That It Should Be Tamely And Abjectly Enslaved.

If You Don't Take Change By The Hand, It Will Take You By The Throat.

It Is One Thing To See The Forward Path And Another To Be Able To Take It. But It Is Better To Have An Ambitious Plan Than None At All.

The Oldest Habit In The World For Resisting Change Is To Complain That Unless The Remedy To The Disease Should Be Universally Applied It Should Not Be Applied At All. But You Must Start Somewhere.

It Is Alarming ... To See Mr Gandhi, A Seditious Middle Temple Lawyer, Now Posing As A Fakir Of A Type Well-known In The East, Striding Half-naked Up The Steps Of The Vice-regal Palace While He Is Still Organising And Conducting A Campaign Of Civil Disobedience.

[the Politician] Is Asked To Stand, He Wants To Sit, And He Is Expected To Lie.

The Very First Thing The President [truman] Did Was To Show Me The New Presidential Seal, Which He Had Just Redesigned. He Explained, 'the Seal Has To Go Everywhere The President Goes. It Must Be Displayed Upon The Lectern When He Speaks. The Eagle Used To Face The Arrows But I Have Re-designed It So That It Now Faces The Olive Branches ... What Do You Think?' I Said, 'mr. President, With The Greatest Respect, I Would Prefer The American Eagle's Neck To Be On A Swivel So That It Could Face The Olive Branches Or The Arrows, As The Occasion Might Demand.'

The Turkish Government Began And Ruthlessly Carried Out The Infamous Massacre And Deportation Of Armenians In Asia Minor. The Clearance Of The Race From Asia Minor Was About As Complete As Such An Act, On A Scale So Great, Could Well Be.

The Reservist Is Twice The Citizen.

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