These Winston Churchill quotes will give you insight into the mind of Britain’s greatest and most famous prime minister.
He’s considered an inspirational hero—a leader that guided Britain to victory against the Nazis in the second world war.
We’ve rounded up 150 of our favorite quotes that will inspire you to continually evolve and change yourself for the better.
Let’s get started.
And don’t forget to check out these Nelson Mandela quotes and Malcolm X quotes.
Best Winston Churchill Quotes
1. “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.”
2. “Continuous effort—not strength or intelligence—is the key to unlocking our potential.”
3. “Personally, I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.”
4. “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”
5. “Responsibility is the price of greatness.”
Related: Best Quotes About Responsibility
6. “Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.”
7. “It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.”
8. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.”
9. “The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.”
10. “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
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11. “If you are going through hell, keep going.”
12. “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”
13. “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
14. “Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.”
15. “Never, never, never give in!”
16. “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. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
17. “My tastes are simple—I am easily satisfied with the best.”
18. “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.”
19. “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”
20. “I never worry about action, but only about inaction.”
Winston Churchill Quotes on Freedom and Society
21. “Everyone is in favor of free speech.”
22. “All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word—freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.”
23. “And wherever men are fighting against barbarism, tyranny, and massacre, for freedom, law, and honour, let them remember that the fame of their deeds, even though they themselves are exterminated, may perhaps be celebrated as long as the world rolls round.”
24. “My conclusion on freewill and predestination—they are identical.”
25. “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent vice of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
26. “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
27. “You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war.”
28. “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.”
29. “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.”
30. “War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.”
31. “A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.”
32. “For myself, I am an optimist. It does not seem to be much use to be anything else.”
33. “We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.”
34. “We are all worms, but I do believe that I am a glow worm.”
35. “We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.”
36. “You ask, ‘What is our aim?’ I can answer in one word. It is victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror. Victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.”
37. “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.”
38. “When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.”
39. “Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.”
40. “We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls.”
41. “Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.”
42. “When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.”
43. “I cannot pretend to be impartial about the colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.”
44. “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other possibilities.”
45. “Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.”
46. “Humanity will not be cast down. We are going on, swinging bravely forward along the grand high road, and already behind the distant mountains is the promise of the sun.”
47. “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.”
48. “I pass with relief from the tossing sea of cause and theory to the firm ground of result and fact.”
49. “There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.”
50. “It is always more easy to discover and proclaim general principles than to apply them.”
Winston Churchill Quotes on Government and Democracy
51. “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
52. “Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe.”
53. “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise.”
54. “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
55. “It is the people who control the government, not the government the people.”
56. “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.”
57. “We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”
58. “A love for tradition has never weakened a nation. Indeed, it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril.”
59. “The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that when nations are strong, they are not always just; and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.”
60. “Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind.”
61. “There is no such thing as a good tax.”
62. “A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year—and to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.”
63. “I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.”
64. “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
65. “A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt; long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.”
66. “When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.”
67. “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”
68. “If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.”
69. “There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at with no result.”
70. “The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.”
71. “There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.”
72. “Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is—the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.”
73. “I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself.”
74. “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”
75. “If Hitler invaded hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.”
76. “I hate nobody except Hitler—and that is professional.”
77. “I don’t like mixing up moralities with mathematics.”
Winston Churchill Quotes on Life and Morality
78. “To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents.”
79. “Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut.”
80. “No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle.”
81. “The way to achieve happiness is to try for perfection that is impossible to achieve, and spend the rest of your life trying to achieve it.”
82. “He has all the virtues I dislike, and none of the vices I admire.”
83. “There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues—the most dominating virtues of humans—are created, strengthened, and maintained.”
84. “Without courage, all other virtues lose their meaning.”
85. “You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.”
86. “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”
87. “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”
88. “Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary.”
89. “Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself, believe.”
90. “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
91. “Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.”
92. “Sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes you must do what is required.”
93. “There is no time for ease and comfort. It is the time to dare and endure.”
94. “You create your own universe as you go along.”
95. “Good and great are seldom in the same man.”
96. “Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.”
97. “You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous, and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was meant to be wooed and won by youth.”
98. “Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge.”
99. “To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.”
100. “Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.”
101. “My wife and I tried to eat breakfast together, but we had to stop or our marriage would have been wrecked.”
102. “My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.”
103. “Doubts can be swept away only by deeds.”
104. “They say that nobody is perfect. Then, they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they’d make up their minds.”
105. “Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.”
106. “The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”
107. “How fortunate it was for the world that when these great trials came upon it, there was a generation that terror could not conquer and brutal violence could not enslave.”
108. “This is the type of warrant pedantry with which I will not put up with.”
109. “A man does what he must—in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles, and dangers, and pressures; and that is the basis of all human morality.”
110. “What is the use of living, if it is not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?”
111. “Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl—no superior alternative has yet been found.”
112. “A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.”
113. “He’s a humble man with much to be humble about.”
114. “Now that we have run out of money, we have to think.”
Winston Churchill Quotes on Wisdom and Success
115. “It’s no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”
116. “Don’t interrupt me while I’m interrupting.”
117. “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”
118. “A joke is a very serious thing.”
119. “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.”
120. “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.”
121. “Now, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
122. “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.”
123. “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.”
124. “When you get a thing the way you want it, leave it alone.”
125. “There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.”
126. “It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.”
127. “A small lie needs a bodyguard of bigger lies to protect it.”
128. “This paper, by its very length, defends itself from ever being read.”
129. “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to its close—in its place we are entering a period of consequences.”
130. “Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.”
131. “The most important thing about education is appetite.”
132. “Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.”
133. “Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.”
134. “We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us.”
135. “Always remember that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.”
136. “If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.”
137. “I’m bored with it all.”
138. “The malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous.”
139. “We have not journeyed all this way because we are made of sugar candy.”
140. “There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.”
141. “Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.”
142. “It’s not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something.”
143. “Eating words has never given me indigestion.”
144. “Although prepared for martyrdom, I prefer that it be postponed.”
145. “Success always demands a greater effort.”
146. “Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.”
147. “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.”
148. “I am easily satisfied with the very best.”
149. “You’ll never find a cup of tea big enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
150. “My education was interrupted only by my schooling.”
Did These Winston Churchill Quotes Make You Committed to Your Personal Growth?
As someone leading a nation during the second world war, Winston Churchill held a lot of responsibility, and it is through his experiences and knowledge that we learn how to always recover from any setback we face. Like people always say, life is full of choices. It is up to us to look for the positive side in all situations, even the ones that are seemingly negative, because it is only through these challenges that we’re able to evolve and grow as human beings.
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