Top 500 Winston Churchill Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 4 of 10

151. “There comes a special moment in everyone’s life, a moment for which that person was born. That special opportunity, when he seizes it, will fulfill his mission – a mission for which he is uniquely qualified. In that moment, he will find greatness. It is his finest hour.”

— Winston Churchill

152. “Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer. You have only to persevere to save yourselves, and to save all those who rely upon you. You have only to go right on, and at the end of the road, be it short or long, victory and honor will be found.”

— Winston Churchill

153. “I’d rather argue against a hundred idiots, than have one agree with me.”

— Winston Churchill

154. “I’m going to make a long speech because I’ve not had the time to prepare a short one.”

— Winston Churchill

155. “With integrity, nothing else counts. Without integrity, nothing else counts.”

— Winston Churchill

156. “Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

— Winston Churchill

157. “From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.”

— Winston Churchill

158. “In war, truth is often the first casualty.”

— Winston Churchill

159. “I love learning, but hate being taught.”

— Winston Churchill

160. “Without courage all other virtues lose their meaning.”

— Winston Churchill

161. “The malice of the wicked was reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous.”

— Winston Churchill

162. “It’s Never Over ’till it’s over! Never Give Up! Never.”

— Winston Churchill

163. “Plans are worthless. Planning is priceless.”

— Winston Churchill

164. “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.”

— Winston Churchill

165. “There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction.”

— Winston Churchill

166. “Do not trust any statistics you did not fake yourself.”

— Winston Churchill

167. “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

— Winston Churchill

168. “Your day will go the way the corners of your mouth turn.”

— Winston Churchill

169. “Victory is not final. Defeat is not failure. It’s all about courage.”

— Winston Churchill

170. “To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real.”

— Winston Churchill

171. “The first duty of a university is to teach wisdom, not trade; character, not technicalities.”

— Winston Churchill

172. “Perfectionism spells paralysis.”

— Winston Churchill

173. “Air superiority is the ultimate expression of military power.”

— Winston Churchill

174. “Time is one thing that can never be retrieved. One may lose and regain friends. One may lose and regain money. Opportunity, once spurned, may come again. But the hours that are lost in idleness can never be brought back to be used in gainful pursuits.”

— Winston Churchill

175. “It is no use doing what you like; you have got to like what you do.”

— Winston Churchill

176. “Courage is the greatest virtue because it guarantees all the rest.”

— Winston Churchill

177. “We are shaping the world faster than we can change ourselves, and we are applying to the present the habits of the past.”

— Winston Churchill

178. “We proceeded systematically, village by village and we destroyed the houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the shady trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation.”

— Winston Churchill

179. “The opposition occupies the benches in front of you, but the enemy sits behind you.”

— Winston Churchill

180. “You must understand that this war is not against Hitler or National Socialism, but against the strength of the German people, which is to be smashed once and for all, regardless of whether it is in the hands of Hitler or a Jesuit priest.”

— Winston Churchill

181. “The future is unknowable, but the past should give us hope.”

— Winston Churchill

182. “Meet success like a gentleman; disaster like a man.”

— Winston Churchill

183. “There is no worse mistake in public leadership than to hold out false hope soon to be swept away.”

— Winston Churchill

184. “I never slept as soundly as the night following Pearl Harbor. For I knew that The American Race would now be entering the war and it would never be the same.”

— Winston Churchill

185. “Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut.”

— Winston Churchill

186. “Preparation is – if not the key to genius – then at least the key to sounding like a genius.”

— Winston Churchill

187. “We shall fight in parking lots, we shall fight in empty fields and on wide streets, we shall never surrender.”

— Winston Churchill

188. “Where my reason, imagination or interest were not engaged, I would not or I could not learn.”

— Winston Churchill

189. “What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?”

— Winston Churchill

190. “Writing is an adventure.”

— Winston Churchill

191. “I was not the lion, but it fell to me to give the lion’s roar.”

— Winston Churchill

192. “Politics is more dangerous than war, for in war you are only killed once.”

— Winston Churchill

193. “English literature is a glorious inheritance which is open to all – there are no barriers, no coupons, and no restrictions. In the English language and in its great writers there are great riches and treasures, of which, of course, the Bible and Shakespeare stand along on the highest platform.”

— Winston Churchill

194. “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

195. “The United Nations was set up not to get us to heaven, but only to save us from hell.”

— Winston Churchill

196. “Danger gathers upon our path. We cannot afford – we have no right – to look back. We must look forward.”

— Winston Churchill

197. “It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.”

— Winston Churchill

198. “You create your own universe as you go along. The stronger your imagination, the more variegated your universe. When you leave off dreaming, the universe ceases to exist.”

— Winston Churchill

199. “The length of this document defends it well against the risk of its being read.”

— Winston Churchill

200. “If you destroy a free market you create a black market.”

— Winston Churchill