THE WISDOM OF WINSTON CHURCHILL

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
A good speech should be like a woman's skirt: long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
A nation that fails to honor its heroes, soon will have no heroes to honor.
A nation that forgets its past has no future.
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot long endure.
All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last.
Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.
Churchill: "Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds?" Socialite: "My goodness, Mr. Churchill... Well, I suppose... we would have to discuss terms, of course... " Churchill: "Would you sleep with me for five pounds?" Socialite: "Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?!" Churchill: "Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price
Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it has been said, it is the quality which guarantees all others.
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
Curse ruthless time! Curse our mortality. How cruelly short is the allotted span for all we must cram into it!
Dictators ride to and fro on tigers from which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.
Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.
Fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision.
Great and good are seldom the same man.
History is written by the victors.
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.
I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.
I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
I could hardly be called a pillar of the Church. I am more in the nature of a buttress, for I support it from the outside.
I have never developed indigestion from eating my words.
I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
I no longer listen to what people say, I just watch what they do. Behavior never lies.
I said that the World must be made safe for at least 50 years. If it was only for 15 to 20 years then we should have betrayed our soldiers
If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.
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 you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.
If you're going through hell, keep going.
If you're not a liberal at 20 you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at 40, you have no brain.
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.
It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.
Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it.
Lady Astor said to Churchill, “If you were my husband, I’d poison your tea,” to which he responded, “Madam, if you were my wife, I’d drink it!” The retort has also been attributed to one of Churchill’s friends, Lord Birkenhead.
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.
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
Never, never, never give up.
No crime is so great as daring to excel.
Nothing is more costly, nothing is more sterile, than vengeance.
Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind. 
Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts.
The English never draw a line without blurring it.
The POSITIVE THINKER sees the INVISIBLE, feels the INTANGIBLE, and achieves the IMPOSSIBLE.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.
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.
The main vice of capitalism is the uneven distribution of prosperity. The main vice of socialism is the even distribution of misery.
The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.
There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.
There is nothing government can give you that it hasn't taken from you in the first place.
This is the lesson: 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.
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.
To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.
To improve is to change; so to be perfect is to change often.
To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.
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.
We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
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.
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.
When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.
Without courage, all other virtues lose their meaning.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.
Never let a good crisis go to waste.