duncp’s most recent Quotables

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 realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

An American diplomat is sometimes like a bull who carries his own china shop around with him.

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

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

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

I am easily satisfied with the very best.

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

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

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

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 the glory of the climb.

The Times is speechless, and takes three columns to express its speechlessness.

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

[Of Clement Attlee] A sheep in sheep's clothing.

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.

Naval tradition? Monstrous. Nothing but rum, sodomy, prayers, and the lash.

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

You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'

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.

Lady Astor: Mr. Churchill, if you were my husband, I'd poison your tea!
Winston Churchill: Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it.