By noon it was clear that the Socialists would have a majority. At luncheon my wife said to me, “It may well be a blessing in disguise.” I replied, “At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised.”
Winston Churchill
Churchill reflecting on his defeat in the 1945 general election, which turned him out of office near the end of the Second World War.
The Second World War (Primary source)
Churchill’s six-volume memoir and history of World War II, chronicling his leadership as Britain’s wartime Prime Minister. Combining personal experience with strategic analysis, it covers major battles, diplomatic negotiations, and key decisions that shaped Allied victory. The work earned Churchill the Nobel Prize in Literature.
More about “The Second World War” →
“You do your worst—and we will do our best.”
— Winston Churchill Primary source“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.”
— Winston Churchill Primary source“Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.”
— Winston Churchill Primary source“We may now picture this great Fleet, with its flotillas and cruisers, steaming slowly out of Portland Harbour, squadron by squadron, scores of gigantic castles of steel wending their way across the misty, shining sea, like giants bowed in anxious thought. We may picture them again as darkness fell, eighteen miles of warships running at high speed and in absolute blackness through the Narrow Straits, bearing with them into the broad waters of the North the safeguard of considerable affairs […] The king’s ships were at sea.”
— Winston Churchill Primary sourceMore quotes by Winston Churchill →
“I wish I could write well enough to write that story, he thought. What we did. Not what the others did to us.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“Well done is twice done.”
— Benjamin Franklin Primary source“It was a bitter moment. Defeat is one thing; disgrace is another.”
— Winston Churchill Primary source“The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source