Thanks to GayPatriotWest for reminding me that today is Sir Winston Churchill's birthday. Here are three of my favorite quotes of his, go here to read more about this great man.
"We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!" Speech about Dunkirk given in House of Commons June 4, 1940.
The speech was made 29 October 1941 to the boys at Churchill's old public [private] school, Harrow--not Oxford or Cambridge: "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. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.''
Lady Astor: "Winston, if I were your wife I'd put poison in your coffee."
Winston: "Nancy, if I were your husband I'd drink it."
This exchange is sometimes attributed to Winston's good friend F.E. Smith, but in Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan's The Glitter and the Gold she writes that the exchange occurred at Blenheim when her son was host. See also the American edition of Martin Gilbert's In Search of Churchill (not in the British edition). In Nancy: The Life of Lady Astor, Christopher Sykes confirms Consuelo Balsan's account. "It sounds like an invention but is well authenticated. [Churchill] and the Astors were staying with Churchill's cousin, the Duke of Marlborough, at Blenheim Palace. Nancy and Churchill argued ferociously throughout the weekend."
2 comments:
"Lord Churchill, Your Drunk!"
"Yes, Madame, and your ugly. But tomorrow I shall be sober"
"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."
"The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events."
"Clement Atlee is a modest man who has a lot to be modest about."
The Michael Dobbs novels (e.g., Churchill's Hour) are worth a read.
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