Great Throughts Treasury

"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism."

"No hour of life is wasted that is spent in the saddle."

"No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time with a steady eye."

"No matter how complex mental fashions of one commander, sometimes it is necessary to include the enemy."

"No lover ever studied every whim of his mistress as I did those of President Roosevelt."

"No matter how enmeshed a commander becomes in the elaboration of his own thoughts, it is sometimes necessary to take the enemy into account."

"No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections."

"No one can guarantee success in war, but only deserve it."

"No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all of the other forms which have been tried from time to time."

"No one can understand history without continually relating the long periods which are constantly mentioned to the experiences of our own short lives. Five years is a lot. Twenty years is the horizon to most people. Fifty years is antiquity. To understand how the impact of destiny fell upon any generation of men one must first imagine their position and then apply the time-scale of our own lives."

"No two on earth in all things can agree. All have some daring singularity."

"Nobody ever launched an attack without having misgivings beforehand, You ought to have misgivings before; but when the moment of action is come, the hour of misgivings is passed. It is often not possible to go backward from a course which has been adopted in war. A man must answer Aye or No to the great questions which are put, and by that decision he must be bound."

"Not in vain may be the pride of those who survived and the epitaph of those who fell. The eight thousand paratroopers of the First British Airborne Division who landed in Arnhem, Holland, behind the German lines and held the area for nine days and nights, with a loss of six thousand. [September 1944] Major General R. E. Urquhart, the division commander radioed to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery: All will be ordered to break out rather than surrender."

"Not to have an adequate air force in the present state of the world is to compromise the foundations of national freedom and independence."

"Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result"

"Nothing is more costly, nothing is more sterile, than vengeance."

"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."

"Nothing recalls the past so potently as a smell."

"Nothing will bring American sympathy along with us so much as American blood-shed in the field"

"Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll, always feeling ones pulse and taking ones temperature. I see that a speaker at the week-end said that this was a time when leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the British nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture."

"Nothing is so exhilarating in life as to be shot at with no result."

"Now that we have run out of money we have to think."

"Now at this very moment I knew that the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all!... How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end no man could tell, nor did I at this moment care... We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end... Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to a powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force."

"Nothing would be more fatal than for the Government of States to get in the hands of experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge, and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man who knows where it hurts is a safer guide than any rigorous direction of a specialized character."

"Nothing would induce me to vote for giving women the franchise. I am not going to be henpecked into a question of such importance."

"Now the enemy [Germany] is busy in Russia is the time to 'Make hell while the sun shines'."

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

"Now we have 'adequacy.' What is adequacy? Adequacy is no standard at all. It is simply what His Majesty's Ministers at any given moment, surveying what they have got, choose to say is adequate."

"Occasionally a man stumbles over the truth. Most dust themselves off and continue walking as though nothing had happened."

"Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened."

"Of all the small nations of this earth, perhaps only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind."

"Of course I'm an egoist. Where do you get if you aren't?"

"Of course, when you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise."

"Of this I am certain, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future."

"Old expressions are the best, and short ones even better"

"On September 28 the fleet hove in sight, and all came safely to anchor in Pevensey Bay. There was no opposition to the landing. The local "fyrd" had been called out this year four times already to watch the coast, and having, in true English style, come to the conclusion that the danger was past because it had not yet arrived had gone back to their homes."

"Once in a while you will stumble upon the truth but most of us manage to pick ourselves up and hurry along as if nothing happened."

"On the night of the 10th of May [1940], at the outset of this mighty battle, I acquired the chief power in the State, which henceforth I wielded in ever-growing measure for five years and three months of world war, at the end of which time, all our enemies having surrendered unconditionally or being about to do so,I was immediately dismissed by the British electorate from all further conduct of their affairs."

"Once upon a time all the animals in the zoo decided that they would disarm, and they arranged to have a conference to arrange the matter. So the Rhinoceros said when he opened the proceedings that the use of teeth was barbarous and horrible and ought to be strictly prohibited by general consent. Horns, which were mainly defensive weapons, would, of course, have to be allowed. The Buffalo, the Stag, the Porcupine, and even the little Hedgehog all said they would vote with the Rhino, but the Lion and the Tiger took a different view. They defended teeth and even claws, which they described as honorable weapons of immemorial antiquity. The Panther, the Leopard, the Puma, and the whole tribe of small cats all supported the Lion and the Tiger. Then the Bear spoke. He proposed that both teeth and horns should be banned and never used again for fighting by any animal. It would be quite enough if animals were allowed to give each other a good hug when they quarreled. No one could object to that. It was so fraternal, and that would be a great step towards peace. However, all the other animals were very offended with the Bear, and the Turkey fell into a perfect panic. The discussion got so hot and angry, and all those animals began thinking so much about horns and teeth and hugging when they argued about the peaceful intentions that had brought them together that they began to look at one another in a very nasty way. Luckily the keepers were able to calm them down and persuade them to go back quietly to their cages, and they began to feel quite friendly with one another again."

"One clear-cut result is worth a dozen wise precautions."

"One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'."

"One does not leave a convivial party before closing time."

"One incident preserved by General Ismay in an apocryphal and somewhat lively form may be allowed to lighten the narrative. His orderly, a Royal Marine, was shown the sights of Moscow by one of the In tourist guides. This, said the Russian, is the Eden Hotel, formerly Ribbentrop Hotel. Here is Churchill Street, formerly Hitler Street. Here is the Beaverbrook railway station, formerly Goering railway station. Will you have a cigarette, comrade? The Marine replied, Thank you, comrade, formerly bastard! This tale, though jocular, illustrates none the less the strange atmosphere of these meetings."

"One may imagine that a man who blew the trumpet for his living would be glad to play the violin for his amusement."

"One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations."

"One might as well legalize sodomy as recognize the Bolsheviks."

"One must never forget when misfortunes come that it is quite possible they are saving one from something much worse; or that when you make some great mistake, it may very easily serve you better than the best-advised decision. Life is a whole, and luck is a whole, and no part of them can be separated from the rest."

"One voyage to India is enough; the others are merely repletion."

"One woman who managed to corner him, the story runs, said in a treacly gushing voice: Doesnt it thrill you, Mr. Churchill, to know that every time you make a speech the hall is packed to overflowing? It is quite flattering, Mr. Churchill replied, but whenever I feel this way I always remember that if instead of making a political speech I was being hanged, the crowd would be twice as big."

"One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!"