Secret tape recordings made by Jackie Kennedy emerged this week in which she described Winston Churchill as “really quite ga-ga”. But the pithy aphorisms about life that the great man left behind tell a very different story.
Churchill was incapable of saying or writing anything commonplace, and worked hard at keeping the number of words in his sayings to a minimum. They are rarely longer than a single, highly memorable, sentence.
Almost all of them are relevant to our own lives, as well as shedding light on his. Here are some of the best pieces of advice and wisdom Churchill bequeathed to us...
“You must sleep sometime between lunch and dinner, and no half-way measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed. That’s what I always do. You get two days in one.” (1946)
Churchill took a nap every day, even during World War II, and he lived to be 90. Indeed, in 1950 he joked how: “I get my exercise serving as pallbearer to my many friends who exercised all their lives.”
“The longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward.” (1944)
Unlike so many of today’s politicians, Churchill understood the importance of history and was a historian. When he said this he was reminding Britons of all the earlier times they had been threatened with disaster - principally by Philip II of Spain, Napoleon and the Kaiser - and yet had seen their way through to ultimate victory.
“Criticism in the body politic is like pain in the body; it is not pleasant, but where would we be without it?” (1940)
It is easy to forget how severely Churchill was criticised in World War II. Debates of no confidence in his Government were conducted in the Commons in 1942, although he won them handsomely. Even in the crises of wartime, Britain was a fully functioning democracy, in stark contrast to her enemies on the continent. In World War I, Churchill joked: “I have derived continued benefit from criticism at all periods of my life and I do not remember any time when I was ever short of it.”
“We must not lose our faculty to dare, particularly in dark hours.” (1942)
This year saw Singapore and Tobruk fall to the Axis powers. Yet Churchill did not lose the faculty to dare, and having replaced the high command in the Western Desert, by the end of 1942 General Montgomery had delivered the great victory of El Alamein in North Africa.
“Sometimes when Fortune scowls most spitefully, she is preparing her most dazzling gifts.” (1931)
Churchill was a great believer in Fortune, Fate and Providence, and he saw many reverses in his life. The year he said this was when he resigned from the Shadow Cabinet over Indian self-determination, which meant that he was out of office throughout what he called his “Wilderness Years” of the Thirties. These were years in which in which he strenuously warned against the dangers of Fascism as dictators extended their baleful influence across the European continent.
Fortune’s “most sparkling gift” came for Churchill on May 10, 1940, when he became Prime Minister, after his warnings about Fascism had been proved terrifyingly prescient.
“It is very much better sometimes to have a panic feeling beforehand, and then be quite calm when things happen, than to be extremely calm beforehand and to get into a panic when things happen.” (1935)
he said this in 1935, when he was buffeted by great unpopularity for supposedly war-mongering against Adolf Hitler’s Germany.
Yet he never panicked. For all that Number 10 bustled with activity under Churchill during the war, at the centre he projected a sense of being in complete control. In 1931 he said: “Let us reconcile ourselves to the mysterious rhythm of our destinies, such as they must be in this world of space and time,” and of his own death, he told his bodyguard, Inspector Thompson in 1940: “When my time is due, it will come.”
“A woman is as old as she looks; a man is as old as he feels, and a boy is as old as he is treated.” (1942)
While such politically incorrect remarks were more acceptable in 1942, comments such as these contributed to ChurchillÕs reputation as a misogynist.
Churchill was always very conscious of ageing, writing to an American friend in 1899: “I am 25 today. It is terrible to think how little time remains”.
“When danger is far off we may think of our weakness; when it is near we must not forget our strength.” (1939)
Churchill spoke out in the Thirties about German rearmament and Britain’s lack of military strength. But when war broke out in September this year, as First Lord of the Admiralty Churchill had to project confidence, which he did by emphasising the might of the Royal Navy in protecting Britain.
“United wishes and goodwill cannot overcome brute facts.” (1951)
EVER the realist, Churchill had seen the utter failure of the League of Nations to avert Nazi domination of Europe, and feared when he said this that its successor, the United Nations, would fail just as badly to contain a Soviet Union set upon fighting a Cold War.
“It is wonderful how well men can keep secrets they have not been told.” (1900)
Churchill made this witty observation when recounting his capture by the Boers in South Africa. While his captors hoped he would give them information about the British Army’s plan of attack, Churchill had not been informed of it and so had nothing to divulge.
“Nothing is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” (1898)
Churchill uttered these words after his experiences with the Malakand Field Force on India’s north-west frontier - just one of many times he was shot at during his military career. The words were quoted by President Ronald Reagan when he survived an assassinÕs bullet in 1981.
“You must put your head into the lion’s mouth if the performance is to be a success.” (1900)
A risk-taker all his life, Churchill certainly lived by this rule. He was often compared with a lion himself, and in 1943 a well-wisher called Mr Thompson presented him with one called Rota, which was kept in London Zoo.
“Perfect solutions to our difficulties are not to be looked for in an imperfect world.” (1951)
He was profoundly distrustful of promises made by politicians, believing that “It is always more easy to discover and proclaim general principles than to apply them.”
It was partly this practical attitude towards life that made him a Tory.
“A politician needs 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.” (1902).
Half a century after saying this and having twice crossed the floor of the House of Commons, he was able to add, in 1952: “It is better to be both right and consistent. But if you have to choose - you must choose to be right.”
“There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.” (1945)
Churchill’s rows with the Americans, Russians and Free French during the war were often volcanic, but as this aphorism suggests, they were much better than the alternative.
“I could not live without champagne; in victory I deserve it; in defeat I need it.” (1946)
He was certainly not the alcoholic that his detractors - both contemporary and modern - have made out, but he did enjoy a drink, especially Pol Roger champagne. “Winston is a man of simple tastes,” a friend said of him. “He is quite satisfied by the best of everything.”
“You should never harness a thoroughbred to a dung cart.” (1942)
Churchill said this in 1942 about the job that Alfred Duff Cooper had done as Minister of Information. He had sacked his old friend from the post, but used this aphorism to make it seem as though he was too valuable a man for the unpleasant and workaday tasks of newspaper and radio censorship.
* All Will Be Well: Good Advice From Winston Churchill, by Richard M Langworth is published by Ebury. - Daily Mail