Winston Churchill

Headmasters have powers at their disposal with which Prime Ministers have never yet been invested.

Chapter 2 (Harrow)., 1930

She shone for me like the Evening Star. I loved her dearly — but at a distance.

On his mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, Chapter 1 (Childhood)., 1930

I do think unpunctuality is a vile habit, and all my life I have tried to break myself of it.

Chapter 7 (Hounslow)., 1930

Where my reason, imagination or interest were not engaged, I would not or I could not learn.

Chapter 1 (Childhood)., 1930

I then had one of the three or four long intimate conversations with him which are all I can boast.

On his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, Chapter 3 (Examinations)., 1930

Eaten bread is soon forgotten. Dangers which are warded off by effective precautions and foresight are never even remembered.

The World Crisis, 1911–1914 : Chapter XVII (The Grand Fleet and the Submarine Alarm), Churchill, Butterworth (1923), p. 399, 1923

An infected Russia, a plague-bearing Russia; a Russia of armed hordes not only smiting with bayonet and with cannon, but accompanied and preceded by swarms of typhus-bearing vermin which slew the bodies of men, and political doctrines which destroyed the health and even the souls of nations.

The Aftermath, by Winston Churchill (1929), p. 274, 1923

Jellicoe was the only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon.

The World Crisis, 1916-1918 Part I : Chapter V (Jutland: The Preliminaries), Churchill, Butterworth (1927), pp. 112, 1923

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 though each had ardent advocates, most people were unprepared for either. Here indeed was the Irish spectre — horrid and inexorcisable.

The World Crisis, Volume V : the Aftermath (1929), Churchill, Butterworth (London)., 1923

Arabs would have sat in the dark forever had not the Zionist engineers harnessed the Jordan river for electrification. Now they swarm into Palestine in seeking the light. (1922)

The World Crisis, 1911–1914 : Chapter I (The Vials of Wrath), Churchill, Butterworth (1923), pp. 10-11, 1923

There must be room in our army system for nearly everyone who is not grossly idle or grossly stupid. It is not a case of employing incompetent or worthless men, and such should, of course, be expelled from the army. It is a case of finding suitable employment for officers not fit for higher command.

Officers and Gentlemen, The Saturday Evening Post, 29 December 1900., 1897

It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic.

The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War (1898), Chapter VIII, 1897

Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.

The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War (1898), Chapter X, 1897

I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the firm ground of Result and Fact.

The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War (1898), Chapter III, 1897

It may be said, therefore, that the military opinion of the world is opposed to those people who cry 'Democratize the army!' and it must be remembered that an army is not a field upon which persons with Utopian ideas may exercise their political theories, but a weapon for the defence of the State.

British Cavalry, The Anglo-Saxon Review, March 1901., 1897