Meeting Franklin Roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.
— Winston Churchill
For good or for ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept a subordinate rank.
Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.
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.
Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.
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.
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.
I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.
My rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.
I cannot pretend to be impartial about the colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.
We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.
War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can.
Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat.
True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.
Never, never, never give up.
These are not dark days: these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived.
The power of an air force is terrific when there is nothing to oppose it.
The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.
Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.
A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn't happen.
Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all.
There are two things that are more difficult than making an after-dinner speech: climbing a wall which is leaning toward you and kissing a girl who is leaning away from you.
Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.
Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
My wife and I tried two or three times in the last 40 years to have breakfast together, but it was so disagreeable we had to stop.
The first quality that is needed is audacity.
My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.
Really I feel less keen about the Army every day. I think the Church would suit me better.
If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.
The great defense against the air menace is to attack the enemy's aircraft as near as possible to their point of departure.
To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.
It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.
The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.
Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.
If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.
No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.
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.
I am easily satisfied with the very best.
No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.
Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it.
The short words are best, and the old words are the best of all.
Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.
We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.
Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.
When the war of the giants is over the wars of the pygmies will begin.
