Given at a dinner to honor US ambassador, 1919: “The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.”
On Lord Arthur Balfour, Prime Minister: “If you wanted nothing done at all, Balfour was the man for the job.”
On labour leader Ramsay MacDonald: “A sheep in sheep’s clothing.”
Socialism is the philsophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.
On Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin: “Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.”
I wish Stanley Baldwin no ill, but it would have ben much better if he had never lived.
On Ramsay MacDonald, 1933: “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.”
On Prime Minister Chamberlain following Munich Accords, 1938: “Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonour. They chose dishonour. They will have war.”
On talking about improvements to landing craft, 1942: “The maxim ‘Nothing avails but perfection’ may be spelt shorter: ‘Paralysis.’”
Some people’s idea of free speech is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anthing back, that is an outrage.
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
Interrupting an MP’s rambling speech against his wartime policies: “I must warn him that he runs a very grave risk of falling into senility before he is overtaken by age.”
On Charles de Gaulle: “He looks like a female llama who has been surprised in the bath.”
On Prime Minister Clement Atlee, 1946: “There is less there than meets the eye.”
On the game of golf: “Like chasing a quinine pill around a cow pasture.”
This Treasury paper (report), by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read.
A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.”
Baldwin thought Europe was a bore, and Chamberlain thought it was only a greater Birmingham.”
Any generalization is not worth a darn including this one.
