"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."
"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty."
"Never believe any war will be smooth and easy or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter."
"Where my reason, imagination or interest were not engaged, I would not or I could not learn."
"I wonder whether any other generation has seen such astounding revolutions of data and values as those through which we have lived. Scarcely anything material or established which I was brought up to believe was permanent and vital, has lasted. Everything I was sure or taught to be sure was impossible, has happened."
"I pass with relief from the tossing sea of Cause and Theory to the firm ground of Result and Fact."
"It is better to be making the news than taking it; to be an actor rather than a critic."
"What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?"
"The truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is."
"The choice was clearly open: crush them with vain and unstinted force, or try to give them what they want. These were the only alternatives and most people were unprepared for either. Here indeed was the Irish spectre — horrid and inexorcisable."
"It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more."
"I do think unpunctuality is a vile habit, and all my life I have tried to break myself of it."
"India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the equator."
"It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer of the type well-known in the East, now posing as a fakir, striding half naked up the steps of the Viceregal palace to parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor."
"Mr. Gandhi has gone very high in my esteem since he stood up for the untouchables."
"The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame."
"Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonour. They chose dishonour. They will have war."
"Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust for blood and plunder. Not content with having all Europe under his heel, or else terrorized into various forms of abject submission, he must now carry his work of butchery and desolation among the vast multitudes of Russia and of Asia."
"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat."
"We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it."
"Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential."
"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."
"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."
"I am prepared to meet my maker; whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."
"The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."
"The object of presenting medals, stars, and ribbons is to give pride and pleasure to those who have deserved them."
"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
"In War: Resolution. In Defeat: Defiance. In Victory: Magnanimity. In Peace: Good Will."
"I am an optimist — it does not seem to be much use being anything else."
"I think I can save the British Empire from anything — except the British."
