Winston Spencer Churchill - Select Quotes

“What shall I do with my books?” was the question; and the answer “Read them” sobered the questioner.
But if you cannot read them, at any rate handle them and, as it were, fondle them. Peer into them. Let them fall open where they will. Read on from the very first sentence that arrests the eye. Then turn to another. Make a voyage of discovery, taking soundings of uncharted seas. . . . Arrange them on your own plan, so that if you do not know what is in them, you at least know where they are. If they cannot be your friends, let them at any rate be your acquaintances. If they cannot enter the circle of your life, do not deny them at least a nod of recognition.

A baboon in a forest is a matter of legitimate speculation; a baboon in a zoo is an object of public curiosity; but a baboon in your wife’s bed is a cause of the gravest concern.
~ in regard to the growing German threat

I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honor, and Greek as a treat.
~ in Roving Commission: My Early Life

We shape our buildings. Thereafter, they shape us.

You can always count on the U.S. to do the right thing–once it has exhausted the alternatives.

Success is never final; failure is never fatal.

We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival.

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.

The inherent vice of Capitalism is
the unequal sharing of blessings;
the inherent vice of Socialism is
the equal sharing of miseries.