Here are some of the finest examples of words that have stirred the valor of a nation. But the force of such words is magnified 100-fold if they reflect the courage and character of the man or woman who speaks them.
- Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because, as has been said, 'it is the quality which guarantees all others.'
- You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true, and also fierce, you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her.
- Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.
- 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?
- Sure I am of this, that you have only to endure to conquer. You have only to persevere to save yourselves, and to save all those who rely upon you. You have only to go right on, and at the end of the road, be it short or long, victory and honor will be found.
- Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.
- We know that he has, more than any other man, the gift of compressing the largest number of words into the smallest amount of thought.
- The world looks with some awe upon a man who appears unconcernedly indifferent to home, money, comfort, rank, or even power and fame. The world feels not without a certain apprehension, that here is some one outside its jurisdiction; someone before whom its allurements may be spread in vain; some one strangely enfranchised, untamed, untrammelled by convention, moving independent of the ordinary currents of human action.
- You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, 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 terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
- Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'
- 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.
