Quotes from Winston Churchill

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

Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.

If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism. (Speech in Rome on 20 January, 1927, praising Mussolini)

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

What kind of people do they [the Japanese] think we are? Is it possible they do not realize that we shall never cease to persevere against them until they have been taught a lesson which they and the world will never forget?

You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.

Of all the branches of men in the forces there is none which shows more devotion and faces grimmer perils than the submariners.

I would tell myself that I was about to address the largest mass assembly of idiots ever gathered in the history of mankind.

A nation that forgets its past has no future.

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

I was only the servant of my country and had I, at any moment, failed to express her unflinching resolve to fight and conquer, I should at once have been rightly cast aside.

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