Prime Minister Churchill Quotes & Sayings

The Government simply cannot make up their mind or they cannot get the prime minister to make up his mind. So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful for impotency. And so we go on preparing more months more years precious perhaps vital for the greatness of Britain for the locusts to eat. - Speaking in the Address in Reply debate, after giving some specific instances of Germany's war preparedness — Winston S. Churchill

In extraordinary circumstances and against the odds, Churchill became Prime Minister instead of Halifax, and that one decision changed the course of history. — Michael Dobbs

Gandhi wanted to meet with Churchill, his most bitter foe, when he visited London in 1931- but it didn't happen. Churchill wanted to go to India personally as prime minister in 1942 to negotiate a final settlement on India with Gandhi and the other nationalist leaders - but the fall of Singapore prevented it from happening. — Arthur L. Herman

I gather, young man, that you wish to be a Member of Parliament. The first lesson that you must learn is, when I call for statistics about the rate of infant mortality, what I want is proof that fewer babies died when I was Prime Minister than when anyone else was Prime Minister. That is a political statistic. — Winston Churchill

Mr. Churchill, Mr. Prime Minister, how many divisions did you say that the pope had? — Joseph Stalin

Government entomologists and chemical company publicists freely employed metaphors that compared insects and Communists. At Columbia University in 1946, former British prime minister Winston Churchill suggested that Communists should study termites in order to see what their future had in store. Unintentionally clarifying the threatening metaphor, the president of the American Economic Entomologists entitled his 1947 speech "Totalitarian Insects. — Mark Hamilton Lytle

Churchill was in the lavatory in the House of Commons and his secretary knocked on the door and said: Excuse me Prime Minister, but the Lord Privy Seal wishes to speak to you. After a pause Churchill replied: Tell His Lordship: I'm sealed on The Privy and can only deal with one shit at a time — Winston S. Churchill

Prime Minister to the Emperor of Ethiopia 9 May 41 It is with deep and universal pleasure that the British nation and Empire have learned of Your Imperial Majesty's welcome home to your capital at Addis Ababa. Your Majesty was the first of the lawful sovereigns to be driven from his throne and country by the Fascist-Nazi criminals, and you are now the first to return in triumph. Your Majesty's thanks will be duly conveyed to the commanders, officers, and men of the British and Empire forces who have aided the Ethiopian patriots in the total and final destruction of the Italian military usurpation. His Majesty's Government look forward to a long period of peace and progress in Ethiopia after the forces of evil have been finally overthrown. — Winston S. Churchill

Lady Astor was also said to have responded to a question from Churchill about what disguise he should wear to a masquerade ball by saying, "Why don't you come sober, Prime Minister?"
(Reported exchange with Winston Churchill) — Nancy Astor The Viscountess Astor

The spring of 1942 was given over to a very impassioned, strategic debate about where we should first attack in counterpunching against the Germans and Italians. The British argued very persuasively on the part of Winston Churchill, prime minister, that this was a very green American Army, green soldiers, green commanders. — Rick Atkinson

The POSITIVE THINKER sees the INVISIBLE, feels the INTANGIBLE, and achieves the IMPOSSIBLE. — Winston S. Churchill

[Margaret] Thatcher had just become prime minister; there was talk about whether it was an advance to have a woman prime minister if it was someone with policies like hers: She may be a woman but she isn't a sister, she may be a sister but she isn't a comrade. — Caryl Churchill

When Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's government fell in May 1940, the nation turned to Churchill. At last, his unique qualities were brought to bear on a supreme challenge, and with his unshakable optimism, his heroic vision, and above all, his splendid speeches, Churchill roused the spirit of the British people. — Gretchen Rubin

It is only possible to succeed at second-rate pursuits - like becoming a millionaire or a prime minister, winning a war, seducing beautiful women, flying through the stratosphere, or landing on the moon. First-rate pursuits - involving, as they must, trying to understand what life is about and trying to convey that understanding - inevitably result in a sense of failure. A Napoleon, a Churchill, or a Roosevelt can feel himself to be successful, but never a Socrates, a Pascal, or a Blake. Understanding is forever unattainable. — Malcolm Muggeridge

When I warned them [the French] that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken. Some chicken! Some neck! — Winston Churchill

Well, in war, you can only be killed once. But in politics, many times. — Winston S. Churchill

Or we reference Winston Churchill, who was famously reported to have written "This is the kind of tedious/arrant nonsense up with which I will not put," in response to an overweening staffer having removed a preposition from some of his writing. (However, as with many quotes that are purported to have originated with the former prime minister of Great Britain, the author was someone other than Churchill).* — Ammon Shea

Solitary Trees if they grow at all, grow strong. — Winston Churchill

The monarchy is so extraordinarily useful. When Britain wins a battle she shouts, "God save the Queen"; when she loses, she votes down the prime minister. — Winston Churchill

The whole of the situation of the Conservative Party today springs from that night when they dismissed the best prime minister the country had had since Churchill. — Denis Thatcher

The Home Secretary, a young man of thirty-seven, impossible to ignore, who, from his inappropriate post, had pelted the Prime Minister during the crisis with ideas on naval and military strategy, all of them quite sound, had produced an astonishingly accurate prediction of the future course of the fighting, and who had no doubts whatever about what needed to be done. The Home Secretary was Winston Churchill. — Barbara W. Tuchman

It is quite clear that history will record that Margaret Thatcher was the greatest Prime Minister this country has had since Churchill. — Nigel Lawson

You aime lots of stupid crap. While Hassan worked to make God hates baguettes
Colin's mind raced like this:
(1) baguettes (2) Katherine XIX (3) the ruby necklace he'd bought her five months and seventeen days before (4) most rubies come from India, which (5) used to be under control of the United Kingdom, of which (6) Winston Churchill was the prime minister, and (7) isn't it interesting how a lot of good politicians, like Churchill and also Gandhi, were bald while (8) a lot of evil dictators, like Hitler and Stalin and Saddam Hussein, were mustachoied? But (9) Mussolini only wore a mustache sometimes, and (10) lost of good scientists had mustaches, like the Italian Ruggero Oddi, who (11) discovered (and named for himself) the intestinal tract's spinchter of Oddi, which is just one of several lesser-known sphicnters like (12) the pupillary spinchter. — John Green

In early 1945 Berg did go to Switzerland, as depicted here a bit earlier, to kill Heisenberg if necessary. Sitting in the front row of Heisenberg's seminar, he determined that the Germans were nowhere near their goal, so he complimented Heisenberg on his speech about field theory and walked him back to his hotel. Moe Berg's report was distributed to Britain's prime minister, Winston Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and key figures in the team developing the atomic bomb. Roosevelt responded: "Give my regards to the catcher." Werner — Gregory Benford

There was much talk about why the prime minister had brought back such a troublesome and unpredictable colleague, and the consensus was that he preferred to have Churchill inside the tent spitting out. — Ken Follett

Millard! Who's the prime minister?"
"Winston Churchill," he said. "Have you gone daft?"
"What's the capital of Burma?"
"Lord, I've no idea. Rangoon?"
"Good! When's your birthday?"
"Will you quit shouting and let me bleed in peace! — Ransom Riggs