Great Throughts Treasury

"I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence-which is a noble thing."

"I had been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who got drunk ? and I would have liked to have the boozing scholars of the Universities wheeled into line and properly chastised for their squalid misuse of what I must ever regard as a gift of the gods."

"I had a feeling once about mathematics -- that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me -- the Byss and the Abyss. I saw -- as one might see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor's Show -- a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly why it happened and why tergiversation was inevitable -- but it was after dinner and I let it go."

"I had no idea of the enormous and unquestionably helpful part that humbug plays in the social life of great peoples dwelling in a state of democratic freedom."

"I hate nobody except Hitler ? and that is professional."

"I have always considered that the substitution of the internal combustion engine for the horse marked a very gloomy milestone in the progress of mankind."

"I have always noticed that whenever a radical takes to Imperialism, he catches it in a very acute form."

"I hate nobody except Hitler--and that is professional."

"I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion."

"I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities which he excites among his opponents."

"I have always had a curious nature; I enjoy learning, but I dislike being taught."

"I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war I hoped we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations. I am sorry, however, that he has not been mellowed by the great success that has attended him. The whole world would rejoice to see the Hitler of peace and tolerance, and nothing would adorn his name in world history so much as acts of magnanimity and of mercy and of pity to the forlorn and friendless, to the weak and poor... Let this great man search his own heart and conscience before he accuses anyone of being a warmonger."

"I have left the obvious, essential fact to this point, namely, that it is the Russian Armies who have done the main work in tearing the guts out of the German army. In the air and on the oceans we could maintain our place, but there was no force in the world which could have been called into being, except after several more years, that would have been able to maul and break the German army unless it had been subjected to the terrible slaughter and manhandling that has fallen to it through the strength of the Russian Soviet Armies."

"I have been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who get drunk."

"I have never accepted what many people have kindly said-namely that I inspired the nation. Their will was resolute and remorseless, and as it proved, unconquerable. It fell to me to express it."

"I have never seen a human being who more perfectly represented the modern conception of a robot."

"I have no doubt that the Romans planned the time-table of their days far better than we do. They rose before the sun at all seasons. Except in wartime we never see the dawn. Sometimes we see sunset. The message of sunset is sadness; the message of dawn is hope. The rest and the spell of sleep in the middle of the day refresh the human frame far more than a long night. We were not made by Nature to work, or even play, from eight o?clock in the morning till midnight. We throw a strain upon our system which is unfair and improvident. For every purpose of business or pleasure, mental or physical, we ought to break our days and our marches into two."

"I have never developed indigestion from eating my words."

"I have never promised anything but blood, tears, toil and sweat. Now, however we have a new experience. We have a victory - a remarkable and definite victory. The bright gleam has caught the helmets of our soldiers and warmed and cheered all our hearts."

"I have nothing to add to the reply which has already been sent."

"I have not made any arrogant, confident, boasting predictions at all. On the contrary, I have stuck hard to my blood, toil, tears and sweat, to which I have added muddle and mismanagement, and that, to some extend I must admit, is what you have got out of it."

"I have only one single purpose - the destruction of Hitler - and my life is much simplified thereby. If Hitler invaded Hell I would at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. 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. But I take my task with buoyancy and hope. Come, then, let us go forward with our united strength? You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs ? Victory in spite of all terrors ? Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival."

"I have not become the King?s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire."

"I have watched this famous island descending incontinently, fecklessly, the stairway which lead to a dark gulf."

"I have waited 50 years to see the boneless wonder (Ramsay Macdonald) sitting on the Treasury Bench."

"I have stated that a democracy is always two years behind the dictator."

"I have worked very hard with Nehru. I told him he should be the light of Asia, to show all those millions how they can shine out, instead of accepting the darkness of Communism."

"I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me."

"I leave when the pub closes."

"I like a man who grins when he fights."

"I let the argument rip healthily between the departments. This is a very good way to finding out the truth."

"I hope I shall never see the day when the force of Right is deprived of the Right of Force."

"I know why logs spit. I know what it is to be consumed."

"I like to live in the past. I don't think people are going to get much fun in the future."

"I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."

"I live from mouth to hand."

"I love to learn but I do not want to be taught"

"I must point out? that the British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst, and like to be told that they are very likely to get much worse in the future and must prepare themselves for further reverses."

"I must place on record my regret that the human race ever learned to fly."

"I never worry about action, but only inaction."

"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."

"I pass with relief from the tossing sea of cause and theory to the firm ground of result and fact"

"I now began for the first time to envy those young cubs at the university who had fine scholars to tell them what was what; professors who had devoted their lives to mastering and focusing ideas in every branch of learning; who were eager to distribute the treasures they had gathered before they were overtaken by the night. But now I pity undergraduates, when I see what frivolous lives many of them lead in the midst of precious fleeting opportunity. After all, a man?s Life must be nailed to a cross either of Thought or Action. Without work there is no play."

"I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself."

"I propose that 100,000 degenerate Britons should be forcibly sterilized and others put in labor camps to halt the decline of the British race."

"I remember when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum's Circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the program which I most desired to see was the one described as "The Boneless Wonder". My parents judged that the spectacle would be too demoralizing and revolting for my youthful eye and I have waited fifty years, to see The Boneless Wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench."

"I realized that I should be on my best behavior - punctual, subdued, reserved - in short, display all the qualities with which I am least endowed."

"I saw them before you were born. I came here first in 1900. [Reporter: Do they look the same?] Well, the principle seems the same. The water still keeps falling over."

"I see [it said that] leaders should keep their ears to the ground. All I can say is that the ... nation will find it very hard to look up to leaders who are detected in that somewhat ungainly posture."