Great Throughts Treasury

"To achieve the extirpation of Nazi tyranny there are no lengths of violence to which we will not go."

"To Admiral Cunningham it was against all tradition to abandon the Army in such a crisis. He declared, It takes the Navy three years to build a new ship. It will take three hundred years to build a new tradition."

"To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often."

"To all of us comes that moment in life when we are literally tapped on the shoulder to do a very special thing unique to ourselves and our talents. What a pity if that moment finds us unprepared."

"To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour."

"To improve, you have to change; to its perfect, should be changed frequently."

"To have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. Now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all!?Hitler?s fate was sealed. Mussolini?s fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder."

"To meet Roosevelt with all his buoyant sparkle, his iridescence, was like opening a bottle of champagne."

"To Ibn Saud when he heard that the king's religion forbade smoking and alcohol: 'I must point out that 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.'"

"To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war"

"Today is Trinity Sunday. Centuries ago words were written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of Truth and Justice: Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valor, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be."

"Today we may say aloud before an awe-struck world: "We are still masters of our fate. We are still captain of our souls.""

"Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent."

"Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best light."

"True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information."

"Twenty to twenty-five! These are the years! Dont be content with things as they are. Dont take No for an answer. Never submit to failure. Do not be fobbed off with mere personal success or acceptance. You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was made to be wooed and won by youth. She has lived and thrived only by repeated subjugations."

"Twice in my lifetime the long arm of destiny has reached across the oceans and involved the entire life and manhood of the United States in a deadly struggle. There was no use in saying We don't want it; we won"

"Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is."

"Unless the right honorable gentleman changes his policy and methods and moves without the slightest delay, he will be as great a curse to this country in peace as he was a squalid nuisance in time of war."

"Two nations divided by a common language."

"Unpunctuality is a vile habit, and all my life I have tried to break myself of it."

"Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depend our own British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us now. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'"

"Vast and fearsome as the human scene has become, personal contact of the right people, in the right places, at the right time, may yet have a potent and valuable part to play in the cause of peace which is in our hearts."

"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."

"Victory is the beautiful, bright-colored flower. Transport is the stem without which it could never have blossomed."

"Votes out of over twenty thousand cast. At the General Election I was returned for Epping by a ten thousand majority, but as a Constitutionalist."

"Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong-these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history."

"War is mainly a catalogue of blunders."

"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."

"War will find us whether we are ready or not."

"Wars are not won by evacuations."

"War is not final, failure is not fatal; it isn?t the will to continue that counts."

"Watch your actions, they become your habits."

"War, which used to be cruel and magnificent has now become cruel and squalid."

"Watch your thoughts, they become your words."

"Watch your habits, they determine your character."

"Watch your character for your character is your destiny."

"Watch your words, they become your actions."

"We (The British) have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy."

"We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glowworm."

"We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we were young. The young sow wild oats. The old grow sage."

"We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those who have allowed us to escape."

"We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed to forget the feuds of a thousand years."

"We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out."

"We are really doing our very best. There are no doubt many mistakes and shortcomings. A lot of things are done none too well. Some things that ought to be done have not yet been done...[But Britain's effort has] justly commanded the wonder and admiration of every friendly nation in the world."

"We are still masters of our fate. We are still captains of our souls."

"We are waiting for the long-promised invasion. So are the fishes."

"We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty"

"We ask no favors of the enemy. We seek from them no compunction. On the contrary, if tonight the people of London were asked to cast their votes as to whether a convention should be entered into to stop the bombing of all cities, an overwhelming majority would cry, "No, we will mete out to the Germans the measure, and more than the measure, they have meted out to us." {applause} The people of London with one voice would say to Hitler: "You have committed every crime under the sun. Where you have been the least resisted there you have been the most brutal. It was you who began the indiscriminate bombing. We remember Warsaw! In the first few days of the war. We remember Rotterdam. We have been newly reminded of your habits by the hideous massacre in Belgrade. We know too well the bestial assaults you're making upon the Russian people, to whom our hearts go out in their valiant struggle! {cheers} We will have no truce or parley with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will! You do your worst! - and we will do our best! {sustained cheering} Perhaps it may be our turn soon. Perhaps it may be our turn now.""

"We build dwellings and thereafter they build us."