99 Winston Churchill Quotes and Sayings

Looking for the best Winston Churchill quotes and sayings? We’ve compiled a list of famous Winston Churchill quotes and sayings on success, life, courage, change, politics, and more.

Winston Churchill Quotes

1. “Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

2. “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak, it’s also what it takes to sit down and listen.” – Winston Churchill

3. “I have never developed indigestion from eating my words.” – Winston Churchill

4. “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” – Winston Churchill
5. “Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.” – Winston Churchill
6. “Play the game for more than you can afford to lose. Only then will you learn the game.” – Winston Churchill
7. “I never worry about action, but only inaction.” – Winston Churchill
8. “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” – Winston Churchill
9. “Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge.” – Winston Churchill
10. “A state of society where men may not speak their minds cannot long endure.” – Winston Churchill

Inspiring Winston Churchill Quotes

11. “Politics is more dangerous than war, for in war you are only killed once.” – Winston Churchill
12. “I am easily satisfied with the very best.” – Winston Churchill
13. “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill
14. “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 Churchill
15. “Without a measureless and perpetual uncertainty, the drama of human life would be destroyed.” – Winston Churchill
16. “We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.” – Winston Churchill
17. “The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.” – Winston Churchill
18. “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 Churchill
19. “It is no use saying ‘we are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.” – Winston Churchill
20. “Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.” – Winston Churchill

Quotes by Winston Churchill

21. “We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.” – Winston Churchill
22. “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” – Winston Churchill
23. “Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.” – Winston Churchill
24. “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” – Winston Churchill
25. “When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.” – Winston Churchill
26. “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” – Winston Churchill
27. “It is wonderful what great strides can be made when there is a resolute purpose behind them.” – Winston Churchill
28. “All I can say is that I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.” – Winston Churchill
29. “All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope.” – Winston Churchill
30. “Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.” – Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill Quotes

31. “We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.” – Winston Churchill
32. “If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.” – Winston Churchill
33. “Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.” – Winston Churchill
34. “We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.” – Winston Churchill
35. “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” – Winston Churchill
36. “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last.” – Winston Churchill
37. “Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.” – Winston Churchill
38. “I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.” – Winston Churchill
39. “There is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.” – Winston Churchill
40. “A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” – Winston Churchill

Motivational Winston Churchill Quotes

41. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill
42. “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 Churchill
43. “Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.” – Winston Churchill
44. “My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.” – Winston Churchill
45. “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 Churchill
46. “It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.” – Winston Churchill
47. “I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.” – Winston Churchill
48. “Without courage, all other virtues lose their meaning.” – Winston Churchill
49. “The price of greatness is responsibility.” – Winston Churchill
50. “To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to change often.” – Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill Quotes

51. “There are a terrible lot of lies going about the world, and the worst of it is that half of them are true.” – Winston Churchill
52. “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 Churchill
53. “The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.” – Winston Churchill
54. “You have enemies? Good. It means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” – Winston Churchill
55. “In finance, everything that is agreeable is unsound and everything that is sound is disagreeable.” – Winston Churchill
56. “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill
57. “I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.” – Winston Churchill
58. “Great and good are seldom the same man.” – Winston Churchill
59. “History is written by the victors.” – Winston Churchill
60. “Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.” – Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill Quotes

61. “The English never draw a line without blurring it.” – Winston Churchill
62. “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.” – Winston Churchill
63. “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 Churchill
64. “Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.” – Winston Churchill
65. “If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find we have lost the future.” – Winston Churchill
66. “I may be drunk, miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.” – Winston Churchill
67. “Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it has been said, it is the quality which guarantees all others.” – Winston Churchill
68. “Every man should ask himself each day whether he is not too readily accepting negative solutions.” – Winston Churchill
69. “The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.” – Winston Churchill
70. “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 Churchill

Inspiring Short Quotes by Winston Churchill

71. “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” – Winston Churchill
72. “Dictators ride to and fro on tigers from which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.” – Winston Churchill
73. “War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.” – Winston Churchill
74. “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 Churchill
75. “No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it.” – Winston Churchill
76. “We must beware of needless innovations, especially when guided by logic.” – Winston Churchill
77. “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 Churchill
78. “Success is never found. Failure is never fatal. Courage is the only thing.” – Winston Churchill
79. “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” – Winston Churchill
80. “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 Churchill

Famous Winston Churchill Quotes

81. “It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.” – Winston Churchill
82. “Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.” – Winston Churchill
83. “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 Churchill
84. “Say what you have to say and the first time you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending – sit down.” – Winston Churchill
85. “If one has to submit, it is wasteful not to do so with the best grace possible.” – Winston Churchill
86. “Curse ruthless time! Curse our mortality. How cruelly short is the allotted span for all we must cram into it!”
87. “What is adequacy? Adequacy is no standard at all.” – Winston Churchill
88. “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 Churchill
89. “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 Churchill
90. “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 Churchill

Winston Churchill Quotes

91. “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.” – Winston Churchill
92. “Everyone has his day, and some days last longer than others.” – Winston Churchill
93. “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” – Winston Churchill
94. “The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.” – Winston Churchill
95. “No crime is so great as daring to excel.” – Winston Churchill
96. “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 Churchill
97. “The English know how to make the best of things. Their so-called muddling through is simply skill at dealing with the inevitable.” – Winston Churchill
98. “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” – Winston Churchill
99. “Broadly speaking short words are best and the old words when short, are best of all.” – Winston Churchill