Winston Churchill

Rating:
Summary: No One Is More Frequently Quoted
Review: I cannot prove empirically that the words above these comments are unimpeachably accurate; I would however wager that were there such a system to track how often the words of one person are quoted by another, Sir Winston Spencer Churchill would rival all competitors. There are many reasons for this position, the length of his life, the events he was in the midst of, and the manner by which he memorialized all he was involved in. In the 100 years The Nobel Prize For Literature has been given out, it has been given only 6 times to English authors, and he is one of them.

His was born when Queen Victoria sat on the throne of England, and he died when President Lyndon Johnson was serving his second year as President of The United States. There were very few years he was not in the public's eye, and very few moments he was out of the midst of current events. Even the so called, "wilderness years", would become integral in his being prepared to defend The Western Democracies from the threats posed by WWII, and the men who left England horribly exposed. It is too much to say that his words alone carried England through her finest and darkest hours, but that his words were integral cannot be argued.

Sir Winston was a great believer in reading the quotations of history's great personages and then following those quotes through to more detailed biographies. Like Disraeli before him who stated one should read biography to learn history, Churchill often took the very same path. He was never concerned with how History would view him, for has often been quoted he stated, "I will write it". Write it he did, and even if he had not, with his words so ever present in the speeches of those who are in the public arena, and writers of all genres whether fiction or non-fiction, this man would never have been forgotten by History.

There are seemingly endless books about Churchill and collections of wide varieties of his utterances. As a person who has read many of these books, I can say confidently that this pocket size version is well worth your while, contains many of his better known bon mots, and while specific wording will vary with those that record his words from a variety of sources, I found only one or two that seemed to turn a word differently than I had read before.

Few lives have stretched nearly a century, fewer still a century as dramatic as the 20th. He was there for the sunset of the 19th, the dawn of the 20th, and as his lengthy life allowed him to experience the majority of the tumultuous 20th Century. The History of our World has seen few like him, and with our modern penchant for destroying those in one moment who we hold in such tenuous esteem only a breath before, it may be a very long time until his kind is seen once again.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent! A must for all who study the man and the language
Review: The title of my review had simply told what I wanna say. Churchill is such a famous person of wit and words. That's beyond argument. Therefore it's not a difficult job for the editor-author to pick and pack Churchill's words, with some short sentences telling the background of each, into a thin book. Anyway, he did it alright.

I would like to pick some of my favorite quotes for your reference. Hope you like them and can share my feelings of how brilliant Churchill. and also indirectly, this book is.

1. "Trying to maintain good relations with a Communist is like wooing a crocodile. You do not know whether to tickle it under the chin or beat it over the head. When it opens its mouth, you cannot tell whether it is trying to smile or preparing to eat you up."

2. "No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeeed, 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."

3. "You will never get to the end of the journey if you stop to buy a stone at every dog that barks."

4. "Virtuous motives, trammelled by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed and resolute wickedness."

5. "What if I had said, instead of "We shall fight on the beaches", "Hostilities will be engaged with our adversary on the coastal perimeter?".

and......many other invaluable quotes. In short, a must buy.

Rating:
Summary: Very Enjoyable
Review: This relatively small book is divided into several sections with slices from Churchill's life and quotations related to politics, speaches, friends, animals, family, etc.

Here are few excerpts:

While campaigning in 1900, it is said that the young Churchill was doing a spot of canvassing when one of those he approached exclaimed:

"Vote for you? Why, I'd rather vote for the Devil!"

"I understand", Churchill answered, "But in case your friend is not running, may I count on your support?"

* * *

When passed a very long but turgidly written memorandum on some worthy but uninspiring subject, the elderly Prime Minister weighed the thick wad of paper in his hands and commented, "This paper by its very length defends itself against the risk of being read."

* * *

Churchill liked animals; sometimes he found this difficult to reconcile with his fondness for rich food. Anthony Montague Brown recalled that 'One Christmas he was about to carve a goost. Learning it was one of his own, he put down the knife and fork and said, "I could not possibly eat a bird that I have known socially."

* * *

A BBC broadcaster described once sitting next to Churchill as he gave a speech, keeping his audience hanging on to his every word. The boradcaster noticed, howver, that what appeared to be notes in Churchill's hand was only a laundry slip, and he later remarked upon this to Churchill. "Yes", said Churchill. "It gave confidence to my audience."