101 Inspiring Winston Churchill Quotes That Touch On Everything—From Politics to Human Nature
By MARYN LILES
MAY 20, 2021 – 12:54 PM
Winston Churchill has tons of amazing quotes, and this list of 101 quotes by Winston Churchill are some of the best.
As the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955, Winston Churchill was a respected figure during his day—and his legacy, as well as his famous quotes, still live on today.
And while his political career as a wartime leader might be what makes him most famous, he was also a social reformer and well-known writer—which is why so many famous Winston Churchill quotes go beyond politics.
From sayings that comment on politics to inspiring quotations by Winston Churchill about humanity to funny, timeless quotes that will make you think, these 101 Winston Churchill quotes are the cream of the crop.
101 Winston Churchill Quotes
Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images
- 1. If you are going through hell, keep going. —Winston Churchill
Unsplash
- 2. Never, never, never give up. —Winston Churchill
- 3. Time and money are largely interchangeable terms. —Winston Churchill
- 4. Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. —Winston Churchill
- 5. Vengeance is the most costly and dissipating of luxuries. —Winston Churchill
- 6. Harsh laws are at times better than no laws at all. —Winston Churchill
- 7. Everyone has his day, and some days last longer than others. —Winston Churchill
- 8. Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts. —Winston Churchill
- 9. It is not in our power to anticipate our destiny. —Winston Churchill
- 10. All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope. —Winston Churchill
- 11. Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result. —Winston Churchill
- 12. My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best. —Winston Churchill
- 13. To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to change often. —Winston Churchill
- 14. All wisdom is not new wisdom. —Winston Churchill
- 15. Every man should ask himself each day whether he is not too readily accepting negative solutions. —Winston Churchill
- 16. If you destroy a free market you create a black market. —Winston Churchill
- 17. The price of greatness is responsibility. —Winston Churchill
- 18. All I can say is that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me. —Winston Churchill
- 19. “I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. —Winston Churchill
- 20. When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber. —Winston Churchill
- 21. In finance, everything that is agreeable is unsound and everything that is sound is disagreeable. —Winston Churchill
- 22. You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something in your life. — Winston Churchill
- 23. The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes. —Winston Churchill
- 24. The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see. —Winston Churchill
- 25. One ought to be just before one is generous. —Winston Churchill
Unsplash
- 26. To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day. —Winston Churchill
- 27. It is wonderful what great strides can be made when there is a resolute purpose behind them. —Winston Churchill
- 28. Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge. —Winston Churchill
- 29. Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, it’s also what it takes to sit down and listen. —Winston Churchill
- 30. 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. —Winston Churchill
- 31. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. —Winston Churchill
- 32. I never worry about action, but only about inaction. —Winston Churchill
- 33. War never pays its dividends in cash on the money it costs. —Winston Churchill
- 34. Continuous effort—not strength or intelligence—is the key to unlocking our potential. —Winston Churchill
- 35. Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it has been said, it is the quality which guarantees all others. —Winston Churchill
- 36. Nothing makes a man more reverent than a library. —Winston Churchill
- 37. You will never get to the end of the journey if you stop to shy a stone at every dog that barks. —Winston Churchill
- 38. For myself I am an optimist—it does not seem to be much use being anything else. —Winston Churchill
- 39. The nose of the bulldog has been slanted backwards so that he can breathe without letting go. —Winston Churchill
- 40. One always measures friendships by how they show up in bad weather. —Winston Churchill
- 41. There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true —Winston Churchill
- 42. You must look at facts because they look at you. —Winston Churchill
- 43. The empires of the future are the empires of the mind. —Winston Churchill
- 44. We have a lot of anxieties, and one cancels out another. —Winston Churchill
- 45. Nourish your hopes, but do not overlook realities. —Winston Churchill
- 46. To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real. —Winston Churchill
- 47. History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. —Winston Churchill
- 48. It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time. —Winston Churchill
- 49. Attitude is a little thing that makes a BIG difference. —Winston Churchill
- 50. Craft is common both to skill and deceit. —Winston Churchill
Unsplash
- 51. In a war, you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times. —Winston Churchill
- 52. It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required. —Winston Churchill
- 53. Evils can be created much quicker than they can be cured. —Winston Churchill
- 54. Give us the tools, and we will finish the job. —Winston Churchill
- 55. 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. —Winston Churchill
- 56. Broadly speaking short words are best and the old words when short, are best of all. —Winston Churchill
- 57. We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us. —Winston Churchill
- 58. Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. —Winston Churchill
- 59. There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right and not to fear to do or say what you believe to be right. —Winston Churchill
- 60. What is adequacy? Adequacy is no standard at all. —Winston Churchill
- 61. In the course of my life I have often had to eat my words, and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet. —Winston Churchill
- 62. It is the time to dare and endure. —Winston Churchill
- 63. If we open a quarrel between the past and the present we shall find that we have lost the future. —Winston Churchill
- 64. Politics is 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. —Winston Churchill
- 65. It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic. —Winston Churchill
- 66. I have in my life concentrated more on self-expression than self-denial. —Winston Churchill
- 67. There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true. —Winston Churchill
- 68. A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. —Winston Churchill
- 69. There 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. —Winston Churchill
- 70. The true guide of life is to do what is right. —Winston Churchill
- 71. Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip. —Winston Churchill
- 72. You never can tell whether bad luck may not after all turn out to be good luck. —Winston Churchill
- 73. You must put your head into the lion’s mouth if the performance is to be a success. —Winston Churchill
- 74. Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened. —Winston Churchill
- 75. Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business. —Winston Churchill
Unsplash
- 76. I like things to happen, and if they don’t happen I like to make them happen. —Winston Churchill
- 77. An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile—hoping it will eat him last. —Winston Churchill
- 78. The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself. —Winston Churchill
- 79. Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed. —Winston Churchill
- 80. I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting. —Winston Churchill
- 81. The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. —Winston Churchill
- 82. I may be drunk Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. —Winston Churchill
- 83. I object on principle to doing by legislation what properly belongs to human good feeling and charity. —Winston Churchill
- 84. 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. —Winston Churchill
- 85. Difficulties mastered are opportunities won. —Winston Churchill
- 86. The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. —Winston Churchill
- 87. The first duty of the university is to teach wisdom, not a trade; character, not technicalities. We want a lot of engineers in the modern world, but we do not want a world of engineers. —Winston Churchill
- 88. The English never draw a line without blurring it. —Winston Churchill
- 89. You cannot cure cancer by a majority. —Winston Churchill
- 90. If we win, nobody will care. If we lose, there will be nobody to care. —Winston Churchill
- 91. The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. —Winston Churchill
- 92. We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it. —Winston Churchill
- 93. We must beware of needless innovation, especially when guided by logic. —Winston Churchill
- 94. If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law. —Winston Churchill
- 95. We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out. —Winston Churchill
- 96. Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old. —Winston Churchill
- 97. There is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure. —Winston Churchill
- 98. Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong. —Winston Churchill
- 99. I’m prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter. —Winston Churchill
- 100. We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty. —Winston Churchill
Unsplash
- 101. A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. —Winston Churchill
- Related: 100 Inspirational Quotes
- Related: Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes
- Related: Abraham Lincoln Quotes
| |