Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
What's your favorite Churchill quote/moment?
There are so many we're spoilt for choice. But I guess, being like Churchill prone to depression - the "Black Dog" as he called it - the most useful of his mottos, applicable on a daily basis, would be "keep buggering on."
If I couldn't be myself - I think not wanting above all to be yourself is a sign of failure - the person from history I'd most like to be is Winston. I wrote about this in the Spectator in one of my TV reviews a few years ago. Here's what I said:
Forty-nine - even more than 40, which is the freaky landmark I've just reached - strikes me as a terrifyingly interesting age to be. You're still sexually and sportily capable enough to think of yourself as an elderly young person rather than a young old person, and you've still enough years left not consider major changes of life wholly out of the question. At the same time, though, you know you've pretty much had it. If there's something in your life that you still feel you lack now, you really should have got on the case and chased it much earlier.
I became very conscious of this watching Richard Holmes's magisterially brilliant In The Footsteps Of Churchill. Churchill - apart from the depression and wilderness years and 1945 election part - is the person from history I would most like to have been, but I know it just ain't going to happen because if it were I would have been conscious of my destiny much earlier as Churchill was when, at 16, he told a friend...."I see into the future and in the high position I shall occupy it will fall to me to save the capitol and the Empire."
What's so worrying about his life - for those of us, that is, who always kind of hoped that if we just keep bumbling on, good stuff and great rewards will eventually come our way because hey we're nice we deserve it - is that, even at its most shambolic, every inch of it seems to have been planned like a military operation. (I sometimes worry that something similar is going on with my Oxford contemporary and near-age-alike Boris Johnson). [Note to Ricochet readers: he's now Mayor of London]
Think, for example, of the assiduousness with which Churchill managed to worm his way into that swansong of a cavalry charge at Omdurman. Kitchener didn't want him to be there arguing, not unfairly, that Churchill was a bumptious young pup who was only after personal glory. But still, by pulling strings and not taking no for an answer, young Winston got himself posted not just to some crappy rear HQ job but in the single most thrilling place a would-be war historian could find himself: as scout, on a hilltop, watching the ululating, brightly-coloured 60,000-strong Mahdi hordes advancing to within a few hundred yards of him and then seeing it cut to pieces by the British artillery.
Part of the deal, then, clearly, is to know very early on exactly what you want and don't stop till you've got it. But another, much harder to arrange, is to be quite exceptionally lucky - as Churchill was the most dangerous two minutes of his life when he sheathed his sword, unholstered his Mauser and galloped headlong with his fellow lancers towards the Mahdi's lines.
Your typical chippy, post-Imperial revisionist would probably make light of this, pointing out that with 25,000 dead on the Mahdi's side and 500 on the Anglo-Egyptian one, Omdurman was hardly the toughest of contests. But this is one of the things I so love about Holmes: he'll give you the broad historical sweep but where he truly excels is in his thrilling, generous, empathetic description of what it must have been like for the men in the thick of the fighting. The lancers did not have it easy. Charging what they thought was a line of just a few hundred men, they realised too late that this was a screen for a massive body of men, twelve ranks deep. Those of Churchill's comrades who hit it at the thickest part inevitably foundered and were cut to pieces. Young Winston, by a fluke, hit it at a point where it was only a couple of men deep, rode through them, wheeled round, emptied his handgun into their faces and got off scot free.
Now that's the bit that makes me want to give up. If you or I had been there, you can bet your arse we would have hit the Mahdi's lines at the thickest point and finished up in tiny pieces on the floor of the Sudanese desert. Character is destiny, see. So really, it doesn't matter what we do. We're buggered from the off.
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Jul '11
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality. - Winston Churchill
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
That's my favorite Churchill quotation.
Aug '10
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
I remember hearing once that Churchill loved splashing about in the bathtub. I think it's charming to picture such a powerful man enjoying such an innocent pleasure.
Mar '11
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
Although the old man is no longer with us, my favorite moment was a couple of years ago at Chartwell, watching a Spitfire and Hurricane fly low along the valley at dusk.
Btw, was that the same Mahdi who is now down the well in Iran, about to return and live in the empty UK Embassy?
Apr '11
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
You're certainly right to point to the luxury of riches we have in regards to Churchill stories; so, instead of recalling one of the tales with which many of us are already acquainted, allow me to relate this (perhaps apocryphal) one: Supposedly, Churchill was woken up one morning when he was Prime Minister in the 50s and it was said, "I'm afraid there's a bit of scandal, Prime Minister; it seems one of our back bench MPs was found with a Guardsman in St James' Park in the bushes last night, er, by the Police and the papers have got hold of it." Churchill said, "Last night?" He said, "Yes." Churchill said, "It was very cold last night, wasn't it?" And the, the PPA, he said, "Well, yes, actually Prime Minister, I believe it was one of the . . . one of the coldest, er, February nights for thirty years." Churchill said, "Makes you proud to be British!"
May '10
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
Peter Robinson
That's my favorite Churchill quotation. · Nov 30 at 10:16am
Thanks, Peter. That's one I hadn't heard before. It demolishes utilitarianism and consequentialism in one fell swoop.
Mar '11
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
George Bernard Shaw telegrammed Winston Churchill just prior to the opening of Major Barbara: "Have reserved two tickets for first night. Come and bring a friend if you have one."
Churchill wired back, "Impossible to come to first night. Will come to second night, if you have one."
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
Hard to pick a favorite Churchill quotation. I like:
Also, I once read that he slept in late every day and disliked music. For some reason, those facts endear him to me quite a lot.
May '10
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
James Delingpole
Amazing how often this sort of presentiment occurs. I suppose Joseph's dreams in the OT are the first recorded example of it. "I saw the sun and moon and your 11 stars bowing down before my star."
There are similar stories about John Paul II being given intimate indications that he was to be Pope one day.
All this inclines one to think, doesn't it, that it isn't so much a question of luck as divine providence? I does me, anyway.
Edited on November 30, 2011 at 9:45pmJun '10
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
The war is over. Atlee is PM and is implementing the welfare state. During a break from a heated Parliamentary session, Churchill and Attlee head for the urinal. Attlee gets there first. Churchill enters and moves as far away as possible from Atlee to do his duty. Attlee says, "A bit standoffish today are we, Winston?" Churchill responds, "Every time you see something big you want to nationalize it!"
More seriously, I have always been blown away by the audacity of these lines, given the circumstances at the time:
This was far more than a call to fight, it was a call to save western civilization.
Edited on November 30, 2011 at 8:02pmMay '10
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
Percival
George Bernard Shaw telegrammed Winston Churchill just prior to the opening of Major Barbara: "Have reserved two tickets for first night. Come and bring a friend if you have one."
Churchill wired back, "Impossible to come to first night. Will come to second night, if you have one." · Nov 30 at 10:25am
This reminds me of a fun G.B. Shaw anecdote:
Browsing in a second hand book shop he came upon one of his own books, inscribed to friend, "With esteem, G.B. Shaw."
He purchased the book and sent it back to the same friend, "With renewed esteemed, G.B. Shaw."
Apr '11
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
I think this one captures his view of life pretty well:
"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm"
I find it strangely depressing and encouraging at the same time.
Jun '10
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
Churchill knew Russia and the Soviet Union as well as anyone. My three favorite quotes below:
Apr '11
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
Mr. James Delingpole, I have to admit that I throughly enjoy the British way of speaking. I love your podcast. At times listening to you, I also have a "bit of the black dog", but I agree pretty much with the bleak "doom" we are headed for if we don't get serious about it.
I love Winston Churchill, who made his Iron Curtain speech not so far from where I live. One of my favorite quotes, though frivolous, speaks to the uncommon grasp of Sir Winston's mind: "A cat will rub up against your leg or a table leg with equal affection".
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
I shall dedicate my favorite Churchill quotation to Newt Gingrich: When asked by a newspaper reporter what qualities a politician required: "The ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year – and to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen."
Jun '11
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
James,
Would you settle for quotations about Churchill? From the introduction to Paul Johnson's nice little biography:
"Of all the towering figures of the twentieth century, both good and evil, Winston Churchill was the most valuable to humanity, and also the most likable. It is a joy to write his life, and to read about it. None holds more lessons, especially for youth: How to use a difficult childhood. How to seize eagerly on all opportunities, physical, moral, and intellectual. How to dare greatly, to reinforce success, and to put the inevitable failures behind you. And how, while pursuing vaulting ambition with energy and relish, to cultivate also friendship, generosity, compassion, and decency.
"No man did more to preserve freedom and democracy and the values we hold dear in the West. None provided more public entertainment with his dramatic ups and downs, his noble oratory, his powerful writings and sayings, his flashes of rage, and his sunbeams of wit...."
Now tell me again why such a man as this had his likeness removed from the Oval Office?
Oct '10
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
Churchill was a firm believer that to gain peace one had to prepare for war. When asked in the House of Commons in 1938 how prepared Britain needed to be, he replied that the question reminded him of the story of the man who received a telegram from Brazil informing him:
Mar '11
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
Having just started playing disc golf in the last year, I have a very new appreciation for Churchill's quote: Golf is a diabolical way to ruin what would otherwise be a walk in pleasant surroundings.
Jan '11
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
"Yes, but tomorrow morning, I'll be sober."
Edited on November 30, 2011 at 8:55pmJun '10
Re: Today is Winston Churchill's Birthday
It's still hard to beat:
"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give."