Winston Churchill was not your average ordinary leader. Thrust to the forefront of leading his country during a devastating World War, Churchill is widely considered one of the greatest political leaders of the past century.
Wise and witty, Churchill the man was also a bit of a bulldog. Fiercely dogmatic and relentlessly stubborn (especially when he knew he was right), one has wonder what would have happened to Britain, and possibly even the whole world, if he did not fight for freedom against Hitler’s reign of terror.
I’ve compiled a list of Winston Churchill quotes and I hope they inspire you, bring a smile to your face, and motivate you to keep pressing on!
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
“History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.”
“My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best.”
“It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.”
“When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.”
“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”
“If you cannot read all your books…fondle them—peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them, at any rate, be your acquaintances.”
“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.”
“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”
“It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.”
“If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time – a tremendous whack.”
“Difficulties mastered are opportunities won.”
“The secret to success is learning to go from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
And two of my favorites . . .
“Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself, believe.”
“To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.”
