155 Winston Churhill Quotes to Find Success and Freedom in Dark Times

His passion and courage altered the course of history. It’s no surprise, the legacy of Sir Winston Churchill continues to spark admiration across the political spectrum. The political leader remains one of the most iconic in world history, leaving behind words of success and freedom through lessons learnt while keeping a nation together.

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born in Oxfordshire England, 1874. He joined the British army in 1895 and received recognition as a war correspondent and writer for his own campaigns. Years later, the British statesman served as Prime Minister for the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955.

Churchill remained a Member of Parliament from 1900 to 1964, taking only two years off in that time. He represented a total of five constituencies and for most of his career remained a member of the Conservative Party as an economic liberalist and imperialist.

The victorious wartime leader led a vital role in defending Europe’s liberal democracy against the spread of fascism. The stimulating and dedicated leadership of Churchill kept a frightened nation together during the London Blitz. While he is praised as a social reformer, the politician has also been criticised for some wartime events such as the 1945 bombing of Dresden. Churchill’s imperialist views including comments on race have also been the subject of controversy over the years.

Aside from being one of the longest-serving politicians in British history, Churchill was also a Sandhurst-educated soldier, a Nobel Prize winning writer and historian and a prolific painter. Today, he is considered one of the 20th century’s most significant figures, remaining popular in the UK and Western world. He died on January 24, 1965, at age 90, in his London home nine days after suffering a severe stroke

As a wartime Prime Minister at a pivotal moment for the world, Churchill was renowned as much for his wit and wisdom, as he was for his brave and clear-sighted leadership. No doubt the politician had plenty to say about how he got not only himself, but an entire nation, to success and freedom through the darkest of times.  

1. 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.

Winston Churhill

2. I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.

Winston Churhill

3. It is no use saying ‘we are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.

Winston Churhill

4. You have enemies? Good. It means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.

Winston Churhill

5. 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.

Winston Churhill

6. If you’re going through hell, keep going.

Winston Churhill

7. Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.

Winston Churhill

8. It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.

Winston Churhill

9. I may be drunk, miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

Winston Churhill

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

Winston Churhill

11. There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.

Winston Churhill

12. Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.

Winston Churhill

13. We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.

Winston Churhill

14. The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

Winston Churhill

15. One always measures friendships by how they show up in bad weather.

Winston Churhill

16. 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 Churhill

17. Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it has been said, it is the quality which guarantees all others.

Winston Churhill

18. It has been said that Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Winston Churhill

19. A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Winston Churhill

20. 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 Churhill

21. 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. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.

Winston Churhill

22. Study history, study history. In history lie all the secrets of statecraft.

Winston Churhill

23. Don’t talk to me about naval tradition. It’s nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.

Winston Churhill

24. The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.

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25. Socialism would gather all power to the supreme party and party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of civil servants no longer servants, no longer civil.

Winston Churhill

26. 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.

Winston Churhill

27. Everyone can recognize history when it happens. Everyone can recognize history after is has happened; but only the wise man knows at the moment what is vital and permanent, what is lasting and memorable.

Winston Churhill

28. Every man should ask himself each day whether he is not too readily accepting negative solutions.

Winston Churhill

29. You must look at facts, because they look at you.

Winston Churhill

30. 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 Churhill

31. Socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the object worship of the state.

Winston Churhill

32. To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real.

Winston Churhill

33. Dictators ride to and fro on tigers from which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.

Winston Churhill

34. There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.

Winston Churhill

35. Socialism is an attack on the right to breathe freely. No socialist system can be established without a political police.

Winston Churhill

36. In finance, everything that is agreeable is unsound and everything that is sound is disagreeable.

Winston Churhill

37. The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.

Winston Churhill

38. 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.

Winston Churhill

39. Things are not always right because they are hard, but if they are right one must not mind if they are also hard.

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40. You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.

Winston Churhill

41. It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.

Winston Churhill

42. 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.

Winston Churhill

43. The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.

Winston Churhill

44. The true guide of life is to do what is right.

Winston Churhill

45. Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.

Winston Churhill

46. Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.

Winston Churhill

47. Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.

Winston Churhill

48. I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.

Winston Churhill

49. Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy then an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then it becomes a tyrant and, in the last stage, just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.

Winston Churhill

50. I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

Winston Churhill

51. Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.

Winston Churhill

52. I have never accepted what many people have kindly said, namely that I have inspired the nation. It was the nation and the race dwelling all around the globe that had the lion heart. I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.

Winston Churhill

53. History is written by the victors.

Winston Churhill

54. Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.

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55. The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.

Winston Churhill

56. There is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.

Winston Churhill

57. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

Winston Churhill

58. If we are together nothing is impossible.

Winston Churhill

59. Broadly speaking short words are best and the old words when short, are best of all.

Winston Churhill

60.  Everything is eminently practical and things are judged from a matter of fact standpoint.

Winston Churhill

61. Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed.

Winston Churhill

62. We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.

Winston Churhill

63. Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.

Winston Churhill

64. 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 Churhill

65. It is wonderful what great strides can be made when there is a resolute purpose behind them.

Winston Churhill

66. The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.

Winston Churhill

67. An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last.

Winston Churhill

68. Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, it’s also what it takes to sit down and listen.

Winston Churhill

69. Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts.

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

Winston Churhill

71. We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.

Winston Churhill

72. 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 Churhill

73. 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.

Winston Churhill

74. If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

Winston Churhill

75. What is adequacy? Adequacy is no standard at all.

Winston Churhill

76. Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.

Winston Churhill

77. The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Winston Churhill

78. 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 Churhill

79. Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churhill

80. If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.

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81. The price of greatness is responsibility.

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82. Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the hard may be; for without victory there is no survival.

Winston Churhill

83. 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.

Winston Churhill

84. It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.

Winston Churhill

85. No crime is so great as daring to excel.

Winston Churhill

86. Success is never found. Failure is never fatal. Courage is the only thing.

Winston Churhill

87. 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 Churhill

88. 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 Churhill

89. The main vice of capitalism is the uneven distribution of prosperity. The main vice of socialism is the even distribution of misery.

Winston Churhill

90. We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.”

Winston Churhill

91. Everyone has his day, and some days last longer than others.

Winston Churhill

92. The flags of the Confederate States of America were very important and a matter of great pride to those citizens living in the Confederacy. They are also a matter of great pride for their descendants as part of their heritage and history.

Winston Churhill

93. Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

Winston Churhill

94. We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty.

Winston Churhill

95. The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.

Winston Churhill

96. In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

Winston Churhill

97. I like things to happen, and if they don’t happen I like to make them happen.

Winston Churhill

98. All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope.

Winston Churhill

99. You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.

Winston Churhill

100. The English never draw a line without blurring it

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101. A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

Winston Churhill

102. If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find we have lost the future.

Winston Churhill

103. If you cannot read all your books…fondle them—peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them, at any rate, be your acquaintances.

Winston Churhill

104. My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

Winston Churhill

105. Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

Winston Churhill

106. Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.

Winston Churhill

107. Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

Winston Churhill

108. I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter

Winston Churhill

109. Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.

Winston Churhill

110. My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best.

Winston Churhill

111. 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.

Winston Churhill

112. In those days he was wiser than he is now; he used to frequently take my advice.

Winston Churhill

113. 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 Churhill

114. A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.

Winston Churhill

115. If one has to submit, it is wasteful not to do so with the best grace possible.

Winston Churhill

116. 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 Churhill

117. For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use to be anything else.

Winston Churhill

118. All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope.

Winston Churhill

119. Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.

Winston Churhill

120. Curse ruthless time! Curse our mortality. How cruelly short is the allotted span for all we must cram into it!

Winston Churhill

121. We are all worms, But I do believe that I am a glow worm.

Winston Churhill

122. Don’t interrupt me while I’m interrupting.

Winston Churhill

123. War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.

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124. A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt; long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.

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125. No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it.

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126. We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.

Winston Churhill

127. In war, as in life, it is often necessary, when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might.

Winston Churhill

128. 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 Churhill

129. 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.

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130. Do not let us speak of darker days; let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days: these are great days – the greatest days our country has ever lived.

Winston Churhill

131. Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Winston Churhill

132. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

Winston Churhill

133. You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.

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134. The English know how to make the best of things. Their so-called muddling through is simply skill at dealing with the inevitable.

Winston Churhill

135. Toilet paper too thin, newspapers too fat!

Winston Churhill

136. 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.

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

Winston Churhill

138. History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”

Winston Churhill

139. 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.

Winston Churhill

140. Say what you have to say and the first time you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending – sit down.

Winston Churhill

141. Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body; it calls attention to the development of an unhealthy state of things. If it is heeded in time, danger may be averted; if it is suppressed, a fatal distemper may develop.

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142. When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.

Winston Churhill

143. Out of intense complexities, intense simplicities emerge.

Winston Churhill

144. To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

Winston Churhill

145. One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!

Winston Churhill

146. To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.

Winston Churhill

147. Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.

Winston Churhill

148. Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.

Winston Churhill

149. You must put your head into the lion’s mouth if the performance is to be a success.

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150. We must beware of needless innovations, especially when guided by logic.

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151. Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.

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152. All I can say is that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

Winston Churhill

153. Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

Winston Churhill

154. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Winston Churhill

155. Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.

Winston Churhill