19 Winston Churchill Quotes To Start Your Week

One of the most charismatic leaders of the 20th century, this man helped the Brits through two world wars. Tough, curmudgeonly, theatrical, and often followed by a cloud of cigar smoke, Churchill was one of the greatest orators to ever step up to a podium.

Listen to him testify.

1. "My rule of life prescribed is 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."

2. "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."

3. "You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."

4. "I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly."

5. "If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time—a tremendous whack."

6. "If you're going through hell, keep going."

7. "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it."

8. "I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."

9. "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

And yes, that is Charlie Chaplain.

10. "He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

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

12. ​"Kites rise highest against the wind—not with it."

13. "The price of greatness is responsibility."

14. "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

15. "However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results."

16. "Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room."

17. "If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law."

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

19. "Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put."

Ethan Wolff-Mann is an editor at Supercompressor. He is not British. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann.