“‘Be Ye Men of Valour’
‘Blood, Toil, Tears & Sweat’
‘Captain of our Souls’
‘Child of the House of Commons’
‘A Dark and Deadly Valley’
‘Finest Hour’
‘I’d Drink It [Poison]’
‘I leave when the pub closes’
‘Linchpin of the English-speaking world’
”Lousy’ as a Parliamentary Expression’
‘Never Give In’
‘Some chicken! Some neck!’
‘So much owed by so many to so few’
‘Sugar Candy’
‘This is not the end.’
‘Total and unmitigated defeat’
‘Up with which I will not put’
‘War of Unknown Warriors’
‘We shall fight on the beaches.’
‘We Shape Our Buildings’
‘Be Ye Men of Valour’
‘Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar.’ This call and spur to the faithful servants of Truth and Justice was quoted by Churchill in his first broadcast as Prime Minister to the British people on the BBC – May 19, 1940, London.
‘Blood, Toil, Tears & Sweat’
‘I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.’ –Speech made to House of Commons on May 13, 1940, three days after becoming Prime Minister. Churchill first used it earlier in the day when he spoke to his Cabinet which represented all parties.
‘Captain of our Souls’
Today we may say aloud before an awe-struck world: ‘We are still masters of our fate. We are still captain of our souls.’ Prime Minister’s Speech on the War Situation, House of Commons, September 9, 1941
‘Child of the House of Common”
I am a child of the House of Commons. I was brought up in my father’s house to believe in democracy. Trust the people – that was his message….I cannot help reflecting that if my father had been American and my mother British, instead of the other way around, I might have go here on my own….I owe my advancement entirely to the House of Commons, whose servant I am. In my country, as in yours, public men are proud to be the servants of the State and would be ashamed to be its masters. – -Speech made to a Joint Session of the American Congress, December 26, 1941. Churchill went to America after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He predicted a “long and hard war.” His speech was broadcast throughout the US, Canada and Britain.
“A Dark and Deadly Valley”top^
“Indeed I do not think we should be justified in using any but the more sombre tones and colours while our people, our Empire, and indeed the whole English-speaking world are passing through a dark and deadly valley.” Speech given in the House of Commons, January 22, 1941
“Finest Hour”top^
“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.” — Speech delivered to the House of Commons on June 18, 1940 following the collapse of France. Many thought Britain would follow. But knowing that “Hitler will have to break us in this island or lose the war” Churchill challenged the British people to uncommon efforts to win the Battle of Britain.
“I’d drink it [poison]”top^
Lady Astor: “Winston, if I were your wife I’d put poison in your coffee.”
Winston: “Nancy, if I were your husband I’d drink it.”
This exchange is sometimes attributed to Winston’s good friend F.E. Smith, but in Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan’s The Glitter and the Gold she writes that the exchange occurred at Blenheim when her son was host. See also the American edition of Martin Gilbert’s In Search of Churchill (not in the British edition). In Nancy: The Life of Lady Astor, Christopher Sykes confirms Consuelo Balsan’s account. “It sounds like an invention but is well authenticated. [Churchill] and the Astors were staying with Churchill’s cousin, the Duke of Marlborough, at Blenheim Palace. Nancy and Churchill argued ferociously throughout the weekend.”
“I leave when the pub closes.”top^
At the end of the war, before the election that he lost in 1945, The Times of London prepared an editorial suggesting that he campaign as a nonpartisan world leader and retire gracefully rather soon afterward. The editor first informed Churchill that he was going to make these two points. “Mr. Editor,” Churchill said to the first point, “I fight for my corner.” And, to the second: “Mr. Editor, I leave when the pub closes.”
“Linchpin of the English-speaking world”top^
“Canada is the linchpin of the English-speaking world. Canada, with those relations of friendly, affectionate intimacy with the United States on the one hand and with her unswerving fidelity to the British Commonwealth and the Motherland on the other, is the link which joins together these great branches of the human family, a link which, spanning the oceans, brings the continents into their true relation and will prevent in future generations any growth of division between the proud and the happy nations of Europe and the great countries which have come into existence in the New World.” Speech given at a luncheon in honour of Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada, Mansion House, London, September 4, 1941.
“Lousy’ as a Parliamentary Expression”top^
The new Minister of Fuel and Power, Hugh Gaitskell, later Attlee’s successor as leader of the Labour Party, had advocated saving energy by taking fewer baths: “Personally, I have never had a great many baths myself, and I can assure those who are in the habit of having a great many that it does not make a great difference to their health if they have less.” Churchill, a renowned bather, responded: “When Ministers of the Crown speak like this on behalf of HM Government, the Prime Minister and his friends have no need to wonder why they are getting increasingly into bad odour. I have even asked myself, when meditating upon these points, whether you, Mr. Speaker, would admit the word ‘lousy’ as a Parliamentary expression in referring to the Administration, provided, of course, it was not intended in a contemptuous sense but purely as one of factual narration.”
“Never Give In”top^
The speech was made 29 October 1941 to the boys at Churchill’s old public [private] school, Harrow–not Oxford or Cambridge:”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. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
“Some chicken! Some neck!”top^
“When I warned them that Britain would fight on alone, whatever they did, their Generals told their Prime Minister and his divided cabinet that in three weeks, England would have her neck wrung like a chicken – Some chicken! Some neck!” — Speech made to the Canadian Parliament on December 30, 1941. Following this speech the famous Karsh photograph was taken.
“So much owed by so many to so few”top^
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”– Speech made in the House of Commons as the Battle Britain peaked on August 20, 1940. The home front was totally involved in the war because of the Germany bombing raids and Britain was “a whole nation fighting and suffering together.” But special gratitude was directed towards the airmen whose prowess and devotion were capable of turning the tide of the war. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. He worked out the phrase in his mind as he visited the Fighter Command airfields in Southern England.
“Sugar Candy”top^
“We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.”– -Speech made to the Canadian Parliament, December 30, 1941.
“This is not the end.”top^
“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Speech given at the Lord Mayor’s Luncheon, Mansion House, London, November 10, 1942.
“Total and unmitigated defeat”top^
“We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat, and France has suffered even more than we have.” – Speech made during debate on Munich Agreement in House of Commons, October 5, 1938. Nancy Astor heckled him by calling out “Nonsense.”
“Up with which I will not put”top^
After receiving a Minute issued by a priggish civil servant, objecting to the ending of a sentence with a preposition and the use of a dangling participle in official documents, Churchill red pencilled in the margin: “This is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put.”
“War of Unknown Warriors”top^
“This is a war of the unknown warriors; but let all strive without failing in faith or in duty, and the dark curse of Hitler will be lifted from our age.” Broadcast on the BBC, July 14, 1940.
“We shall fight on the beaches”top^
“We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!” Speech about Dunkirk given in House of Commons June 4, 1940.
“We Shape Our Buildings”top^
“On the night of May 10, 1941, with one of the last bombs of the last serious raid, our House of Commons was destroyed by the violence of the enemy, and we have now to consider whether we should build it up again,and how, and when. We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us. Having dwelt and served for more than forty years in the late Chamber, and having derived very great pleasure and advantage therefrom, I, naturally, should like to see it restored in all essentials to its old form, convenience and dignity.”
-WSC, 28 October 1943 to the House of Commons (meeting in the House of Lords).
Notes: The old House of Commons was rebuilt in 1950 in its old form, remaining insufficient to seat all its members. Churchill was against “giving each member a desk to sit at and a lid to bang” because, he explained, the House would be mostly empty most of the time; whereas, at critical votes and moments, it would fill beyond capacity, with members spilling out into the aisles, in his view a suitable “sense of crowd and urgency.”
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