Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
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.
Thus, be every device from the stick to the carrot, the emaciated Austrian donkey is made to pull the Nazi barrow up an ever-steepening hill.
It is with deep grief I watch the clattering down of the British Empire with all its glories and all the services it has rendered to mankind.
If, however, there is to be a war of nerves let us make sure our nerves are strong and are fortified by the deepest convictions of our hearts.
I was born under the Blue Ridge, and under that side which is blue in the evening light, in a wild land of game and forest and rushing waters.
A single glass of champagne imparts a feeling of exhilaration. The nerves are braced; the imagination is stirred, the wits become more nimble.
"I hope, sir, that I will shoot your picture on your hundredth birthday." I don't see why not, young man. You look reasonably fit and healthy.
There is no better exercise than to study and devour a picture, and then, without looking at it again, to attempt the next day to reproduce it.
I'm finished ... I'm done. What I want above all things is to take some active part in beating the Germans ... I'd go out to the Front at once.
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.
In battles two things are usually required of the Commander-in-Chief: to make a good plan for his army and, secondly, to keep a strong reserve.
The substance of the eminent Socialist gentlemen's speech is that making a profit is a sin. It is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss!
I propose that 100,000 degenerate Britons should be forcibly sterilized and others put in labour camps to halt the decline of the British race.
The rhinoceros stood ... about five hundred yards away ... not a twentieth-century animal at all, but an odd, grim straggler from the Stone Age.
Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.
It happens that once we learn a thing, the motivation to keep it up grows and expands further as well. If you're going through hell, keep going.
We 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.
A man can wear out a particular part of his mind by continually using and tiring it, just in the same way he can wear out the elbows of his coat.
This wicked man Hitler, the repository and embodiment of many forms of soul-destroying hatred. this monstrous product of former wrongs and shame.
When told by a helpful aide that his flies were undone he replied 'Young man, there is no harm in leaving the cage door open if the bird is dead!
Working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation.
The old wars were decided by their episodes rather than by their tendencies. In this war, the tendencies are far more important than the episodes.
It is in the interest of the wage-earner to have many other alternatives open to him than service under one all-powerful employer called the State
It is not always possible to have everything go as one likes. In working with allies, it sometimes happens that they develop opinions of their own
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.
Always remember, however sure you are that you could easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance.
[Should Britain fail, then the entire world would] sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister ... by the lights of perverted science.
The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it. The fighters are our salvation, but the bombers alone provide the means of victory.
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.
For the first 25 years of my life, I wanted freedom. For the next 25 years, I wanted order. For the next 25 years, I realized that order is freedom.
The eagle has ceased to scream, but the parrots will now begin to chatter. The war of the giants is over and the pigmies will now start to squabble.
Christopher Columbus was the first socialist: he didn't know where he was going, he didn?t know where he was? and he did it all at taxpayers expense.
The United States is a land of free speech. Nowhere is speech freer - not even here where we sedulously cultivate it even in its most repulsive form.
No one can understand history without continually relating the long periods which are constantly mentioned to the experiences of our own short lives.
The Government of India had imprisoned Mr. Gandhi and they had been sitting outside his cell door begging him to help them out of their difficulties.
Out of intense complexities intense simplicities emerge. Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words when short are best of all.
Luckily ... there were Zulus and Afghans, also the Dervishes in the Soudan. Some of these might, if they were well-disposed, 'put up a show' some day.
I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British instead of the other way around, I might have gotten here on my own.
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.
I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel. He replied, 'Verify your quotations.
We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium.
This is a war of the unknown warriors; but let all strive without failing in faith or in duty, and the dark curse of Hitler will be lifted from our age.
The monarchy is so extraordinarily useful. When Britain wins a battle she shouts, God save the Queen; when she loses, she votes down the prime minister.
It is easier to give directions than advice, and more agreeable to have the right to act, even in a limited sphere, than the privilege to talk at large.
... I think it would be so much better for me to learn something which would be useful to me in the army, as well as affording me exercise and amusement.
I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting.
We hoped to land a wild cat that would tear out the bowels of the Boche. Instead we have stranded a vast whale with its tail flopping about in the water.
Painting is the same kind of problem as unfolding a long, sustained interlocked argument... It is a proposition commanded by a single unity of conception.
We were not made by Nature to work, or even to play, from eight o'clock in the morning till midnight. We ought to break our days and our marches into two.
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'.