This is more for MY edification than YOURS. I’m a huge fan of Winston Churchill, one of the great geniuses of the 20th Century. (Put him and George C. Marshall together, and you have the two people who probably saved western civilization in the middle of the last century.) With that in mind, I wanted to start a collection of Churchill quotes, just so I have a great place to keep them all together. Enjoy!
A joke is a very serious thing.
A fanatic is one who can’t change the subject and won’t change his mind.
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.
All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words the best of all.
Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking our potential.
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
Great and good are seldom the same man.
He has all of the virtues I dislike, and none of the vices I admire.
History is written by the victors.
History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.
However beautiful the strategy, you chould occasionally look at the results.
I always avoid prophesying beforehand, because it is a much better policy to prophesy after the event has already taken place.
I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.
I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.
I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.
I am easily satisfied with the very best.
I like a man who grins when he fights.
I am just preparing my impromptu remarks.
If the human race wishes to have a prolonged and indefinite period of material prosperity, they have only got to behave in a peaceful and helpful way toward one another.
If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.
In those days he was wiser than he is now; he used to frequently take my advice.
It is a fine thing to be honest, but it is also very important to be right.
Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.
No crime is so great as daring to excel.
Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and right, than to be responsible and wrong.
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.
Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.
Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.
The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
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.
There is no such thing as a good tax.
There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion.
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.
You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
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From a small northwestern observatory... 
Thanks for posting some of the more remarkable and entertaining quotes from a remarkable and entertaining man. I too am a fan of Churchill, he was truly remarkable. He was a man of words, and letters, but also of deeds. He believed in honor, dignity, loyalty, and in action. He drank in life, and bathed in its richness.
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Rod Anderson
January 9, 2013 at 3:29 pm