Quote collection
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""I have not made any arrogant, confident, boasting predictions at all. On the contrary, I have stuck hard to my "blood, toil, tears and sweat," to which I have added muddle and mismanagement, and that, to some extend I must admit, is what you have got out of it.""
"Far be it from me to paint a rosy picture of the future...But I should be failing in my duty if, on the other side, I were not to convey the true impression, that this great nation is getting into its war stride."
"We are really doing our very best. There are no doubt many mistakes and shortcomings. A lot of things are done none too well. Some things that ought to be done have not yet been done...[But Britain's effort has] justly commanded the wonder and admiration of every friendly nation in the world."
"If I were the first of May, I should be ashamed of myself."
"He sees with amazement that our defeats are but the stepping stones to victory and that all his victories are stepping stones to ruin. It was apparent to me that this bad man saw quite clearly the shadow of slowly and remorselessly approaching doom, and he railed at fortune for mocking him with the glitter of fleeting success."
"Baldwin often times stumbles over the truth, but he always picks himself up and hurries on as if nothing had happened."
"If you simply take up the attitude of defending a mistake, there will no hope of improvement."
"Out of the depths of sorrow and sacrifice will be born again the glory of mankind."
"Let us reconcile ourselves to the mysterious rhythm of our destinies, such as they must be in this world of space and time."
"More than 80 per cent of the British casualties of the Great War were English. More than 80 per cent of the taxation is paid by the English taxpayers. We are entitled to mention these facts, and to draw authority and courage from them."
"...every offensive lost its force as it proceeded. It was like throwing a bucket of water over the floor. It first rushed forward, then soaked forward, and finally stopped altogether until another bucket could be brought."
"It was evident however that the lawyers would have to have their say....This also opened up a vista both lengthy and obscure."
"How many have gone? How many more to go? The Admiralty is fast asleep and lethargy & inertia are the order of the day. However everybody seems delighted - so there is nothing to be said. No plans, no enterprise, no struggle to aid the general cause. Just sit still on the spacious throne and snooze."
"My only consolation for the failure of the Dardanelles was that God wished things to be prolonged in order to sicken mankind of war, and that therefore He had interfered with a project that would have brought the war to a speedier conclusion."
"There is more blood than paint upon these hands. All those thousands of men killed. We thought it would be a little job, and so it might have been if it had begun in the right way."
"Our inheritance of well-founded, slowly conceived codes of honor, morals and manners, the passionate convictions which so many hundreds of millions share together of the principles of freedom and justice, are far more precious to us than anything which scientific discoveries could bestow."
"I am all for your using machines, but do not let them use you."
"In war, the truth must be guarded by a body guard of lies."
"Strategy is all very well, but it pays to give thought from time to time to the results."
"You must sleep sometime between lunch and dinner, and no halfway measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed. That's what I always do."