| Winston Churchill |
| A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash. 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 glory of the climb. From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put. He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire. History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns. I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened. 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 realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. 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. Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. The price of greatness is responsibility. 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. When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber. 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. It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter. For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else. We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it. Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. |
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