Winston Churchill – Character Quotes

This is England, not Belfast. Bodies thrown in the rivers wash up in the papers here.

— ... And always happy to give smart answers to men born better than you.
— A man needs to prove he is better than me rather than show me his birth certificate. You see, I don't have one, so they mean very little to me.

— Thomas Shelby was a tunneller. His demand is rather amusing. He has asked that the Colonial Office grant him an Empire export licence. And specifically a licence covering India, Malay Peninsula, Canada and Russia. He plans to transport certain manufactured goods from Birmingham to the Poplar Docks.
— And you plan to agree to this demand?
— Dear God, Major Campbell... We will be asking this man to carry out an assassination on behalf of the Crown, once more risking his life. These demands by comparison are slight and easily met with a few quiet words over lunch with the appropriate ministers.
— Sir, with the greatest respect, Thomas Shelby is a murdering, cut-throat, mongrel, gangster.
— And yet, the tunnels were dug beneath our feet to silence the guns pointed at our heads.

— You are forming an alliance with a fascist. So I made some enquiries amongst the worst people in Whitehall, and I found out that you are not forming an alliance with him at all. You are spying on him.
— Yes.
— Why?
— The honest answer is... I'm no longer sure.
— Did you dig your own garden, Mr Shelby? <...> ...there are certain species of weed that no matter how much you tug at them, poison them, they continue to grow back. In the end, the only solution is to plough up the top soil, create a field of mud and blow up and burn the exposed tap roots. That's what you and I did in France. But when I hear that man Mosley speak, I see the green shoots of another war growing up around his feet. And you see exactly the same thing I do. That's why you oppose him.

— There are some times, some nights... when I don't see the points of carrying on with any of it.
— Oh. That old dance routine. I put out a cigar, and an hour later I want another. Sometimes, the bridge between hours is a fragile as that. But use it anyway.

We’re all dying. That’s what defines the condition of living.

And the job of drawing that line falls to Cabinet, ma’am. Not to you. Something your dear late papa would certainly have taught you had he been granted more time to complete your education.

Too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

No man should be punished for love.