The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations (26 page)

fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.

Hansard 12 Nov. 1936, col. 1107

The utmost he [Neville Chamberlain] has been able to gain for

Czechoslovakia and in the matters which were in dispute has been that the

German dictator, instead of snatching his victuals from the table, has

been content to have them served to him course by course.

Hansard 5 Oct. 1938, col. 361

I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this

Government: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

Hansard 13 May 1940, col. 1502

You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land

and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give

us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark,

lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is

our aim? I can answer in one word: 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.

Hansard 13 May 1940, col. 1502

At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, "Come

then, let us go forward together with our united strength."

Hansard 13 May 1940, col. 1502

Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have

fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious

apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the

end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we

shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, 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, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island

or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond

the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the

struggle, until, in God's good time, the new world, with all its power and

might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Hansard 4 June 1940, col. 796

What General Weygand called the "Battle of France" is over. I expect that

the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the

survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life

and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury

and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that

he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand

up to him all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move

forward into broad, sunlit uplands; but if we fail then the whole world,

including the United States, and all that we have known and cared for,

will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps

more prolonged, by the lights of a perverted science. Let us therefore

brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that, if the British

Commonwealth and its Empire lasts for a thousand years, men will still

say, "This was their finest hour."

Hansard 18 June 1940, col. 60

The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed

throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the

British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant

challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of world war by their

prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so

much owed by so many to so few.

Hansard 20 Aug. 1940, col. 1166

The British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who

like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst.

Hansard 10 June 1941, col. 152

We make this wide encircling movement in the Mediterranean, having for its

primary object the recovery of the command of that vital sea, but also

having for its object the exposure of the under-belly of the Axis,

especially Italy, to heavy attack.

Hansard 11 Nov. 1942, col. 28 (often misquoted as "the soft under-belly

of the Axis")

He [President Roosevelt] devised the extraordinary measure of assistance

called Lend-Lease, which will stand forth as the most unselfish and

unsordid financial act of any country in all history.

Hansard 17 Apr. 1945, col. 76

Unless the right hon. Gentleman [Mr Bevan] changes his policy and methods

and moves without the slightest delay, he will be as great a curse to this

country in time of peace, as he was a squalid nuisance in time of war.

Hansard 6 Dec. 1945, col. 2544

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world

of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise.

Indeed, 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.

Hansard 11 Nov. 1947, col. 206

I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a

mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian

national interest.

Radio talk, 1 Oct. 1939, in Into Battle (1941) p. 131

Nous attendons l'invasion promise de longue date. Les poissons aussi.

We are waiting for the long-promised invasion. So are the fishes.

Radio broadcast to the French people, 21 Oct. 1940, in Into Battle (1941)

p. 298

Shortly after returning from his tour of the Near East, Anthony Eden

submitted a long-winded report to the Prime Minister on his experiences

and impressions. Churchill, it is told, returned it to his War Minister

with a note saying: "As far as I can see you have used every clich� except

'God is Love' and 'Please adjust your dress before leaving.'"

Life 9 Dec. 1940 (when this story was repeated in the Daily Mirror,

Churchill denied that it was true)

I wrote my name at the top of the page. I wrote down the number of the

question "1." After much reflection I put a bracket round it thus "(1)."

But thereafter I could not think of anything connected with it that was

either relevant or true....It was from these slender indications of

scholarship that Mr Welldon drew the conclusion that I was worthy to pass

into Harrow. It is very much to his credit.

My Early Life (1930) ch. 2

By being so long in the lowest form [at Harrow] I gained an immense

advantage over the cleverer boys. They all went on to learn Latin and

Greek....But I was taught English....Thus I got into my bones the

essential structure of the ordinary British sentence--which is a noble

thing....Naturally I am biased in favour of boys learning English. I would

make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn

Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat.

My Early Life (1930) ch. 2

Headmasters have powers at their disposal with which Prime Ministers have

never yet been invested.

My Early Life (1930) ch. 2

So they told me how Mr Gladstone read Homer for fun, which I thought

served him right.

My Early Life (1930) ch. 2

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

My Early Life (1930) ch. 9

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.

Speech at White House, 26 June 1954, in New York Times 27 June 1954, p. 1

I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the

great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

At news conference in Washington, 1954, in New York Times 25 Jan. 1965

(Suppl.) p. 7

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

Speech at Harvard, 6 Sept. 1943, in Onwards to Victory (1944) p. 238

It is said that Mr Winston Churchill once made this marginal comment

against a sentence that clumsily avoided a prepositional ending: "This is

the sort of English up with which I will not put."

Ernest Gowers Plain Words (1948) ch. 9

Moral of the Work. In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory:

magnanimity. In peace: goodwill.

Second World War (1948) vol. 1, epigraph (Sir Edward Marsh in A Number of

People (1939) p. 152, says that this motto occurred to Churchill shortly

after the First World War)

One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for

suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once "The

Unnecessary War."

Second World War (1948) vol. 1, p. viii

I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had

been but a preparation for this hour and this trial. Eleven years in the

political wilderness had freed me from ordinary Party antagonisms. My

warnings over the last six years had been so numerous, so detailed, and

were now so terribly vindicated, that no one could gainsay me. I could not

be reproached either for making the war or with want of preparation for

it. I thought I knew a good deal about it all, and I was sure I should not

fail. Therefore, although impatient for the morning, I slept soundly and

had no need for cheering dreams. Facts are better than dreams.

Second World War (1948) vol. 1, p. 526

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

Letter to Lord Wavell, 26 Nov. 1940, in Second World War (1949) vol. 2,

ch. 27

It may almost be said, "Before Alamein we never had a victory. After

Alamein we never had a defeat."

Second World War (1951) vol. 4, ch. 33

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And

the tigers are getting hungry.

Letter, 11 Nov. 1937, in Step by Step (1939) p. 186. Cf. the proverb "He

who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount" (see Concise Oxford Dictionary of

Proverbs under rides)

You must rank me and my colleagues as strong partisans of national

compulsory insurance for all classes for all purposes from the cradle to

the grave.

Radio broadcast, 21 Mar. 1943, in The Times 22 Mar. 1943

I have never accepted what many people have kindly said--namely, that I

inspired the nation....It was the nation and the race dwelling all round

the globe that had the lion's heart. I had the luck to be called upon to

give the roar. I also hope that I sometimes suggested to the lion the

right place to use his claws.

Speech at Westminster Hall, 30 Nov. 1954, in The Times 1 Dec. 1954

Mr Attlee, whom Churchill once playfully described as a "sheep in sheep's

clothing."

Lord Home Way the Wind Blows (1976) ch. 6. Cf. Sir Edmund Gosse

Take away that pudding--it has no theme.

In Lord Home Way the Wind Blows (1976) ch. 16

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

In Violet Bonham-Carter Winston Churchill as I Knew Him (1965) ch. 1

Jellicoe was the only man on either side who could lose the war in an

afternoon.

World Crisis (1927) pt. 1, ch. 5

3.58 Count Galeazzo Ciano =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1903-1944

La vittoria trova cento padri, e nessuno vuole riconoscere l'insuccesso.

Victory has a hundred fathers, but defeat is an orphan.

Diary 9 Sept. 1942 (1946) vol. 2, p. 196

3.59 Brian Clark =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1932-

Whose life is it anyway?

Title of play (1977)

3.60 Kenneth Clark (Baron Clark) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1903-1983

Perrault's fa�ade [of the Louvre] reflects the triumph of an authoritarian

state, and of those logical solutions that Colbert, the great

administrator of the seventeenth century, was imposing on politics,

economics and every department of contemporary life, including, above all,

the arts. This gives French Classical architecture a certain inhumanity.

It was the work not of craftsmen, but of wonderfully gifted civil

servants.

Civilization (1969) ch. 9

3.61 Arthur C. Clarke =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1917-

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible

he is almost certainly right, but if he says that it is impossible he is

very probably wrong.

In New Yorker 9 Aug. 1969

3.62 Grant Clarke and Edgar Leslie =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Grant Clarke 1891-1931

Edgar Leslie 1885-1976

He'd have to get under, get out and get under

And fix up his automobile.

He'd Have to Get Under--Get Out and Get Under (1913 song; music by

Maurice Abrahams)

3.63 Eldridge Cleaver =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1935-

What we're saying today is that you're either part of the solution or

you're part of the problem.

Speech in San Francisco, 1968, in R. Scheer Eldridge Cleaver, Post Prison

Writings and Speeches (1969) p. xxxii

3.64 John Cleese =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1939-

See Graham Chapman (3.47)

3.65 John Cleese and Connie Booth =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-