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Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2) QUOTES

Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2) QUOTES

1 " Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end.
But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

2 " Doubts [can] be swept away only by deeds. "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

3 " Success always demands a greater effort. "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

4 " When you have got a thing where you want, it is a good thing to leave it where it is. "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

5 " Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say: ‘This was their finest hour. "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

6 " Strange as it may seem, the Air Force, except in the air, is the least mobile of all the services. A squadron can reach its destination in a few hours, but its establishments, depots, fuel, spare parts, and workshops take many weeks, and even months, to develop. "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

7 " A wit wrote ten years ago: “The leaders of thought have reached the horizons of human reason, but all the wires are down, and they can only communicate with us by unintelligible signals. "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

8 " But now there was a classic example of “Order, counter-order, disorder”. "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

9 " In total war it is quite impossible to draw any precise line between military and non-military problems. "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

10 " Attempts were made in 1941 to design a similar proximity fuze, using a tiny Radar set arranged to explode the warhead when the projectile passed near the aircraft. Successful preliminary experiments were made, but before this fuze was developed in England the Americans, to whom we imparted our knowledge, actually succeeded not only in perfecting the instrument but in reducing its size so much that the whole thing could be put into the head not merely of a rocket but of a shell. These so-called “Proximity Fuzes”, made in the United States, were used in great numbers in the last year of the war, "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

11 " Power, for the sake of lording it over fellow-creatures or adding to personal pomp, is rightly judged base. But power in a national crisis, when a man believes he knows what orders should be given, is a blessing. "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

12 " Half-mast the castle banner droops, The Laird’s lament was played yestreen, An’ mony a widowed cottar wife Is greetin’ at her shank aleen. In Freedom’s cause, for ane that fa’s, We’ll glean the glens an’ send them three, To clip the reivin’ eagle’s claws An’ drook his feathers i’ the sea. For gallant loons, in brochs an’ toons,
Are leavin’ shop an’ yaird an’ mill, A’ keen to show baith friend an’ foe Auld Scotland counts for something still. "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

13 " Germany could not gain complete air superiority unless she could knock out our Air Force, and the aircraft industries, some vital portions of which are concentrated at Coventry and Birmingham. "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

14 " Past experience carries with its advantages the drawback that things never happen the same way again. "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

15 " Drake was finishing his game of bowls; "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

16 " The admiration of the whole country was given to London, and all the other great cities in the land braced themselves to take their bit as and when it came and not to be outdone. Indeed, many persons seemed envious of London’s distinction, and quite a number came up from the country in order to spend a night or two in town, share the risk, and “see the fun”. We had to check this tendency for administrative reasons. *** "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

17 " if the issue were presented to the British as a naked trading away of British possessions for sake of the fifty destroyers it would certainly encounter vehement opposition. "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

18 " During this period I usually managed to take two afternoons a week in the areas under attack in Kent or Sussex in order to see for myself what was happening. "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

19 " There is an age-long argument about ships versus forts. Nelson said that a six-gun battery could fight a 100-gun ship-of-the-line. Mr. Balfour, in the Dardanelles inquiry, said in 1916: “If the ship has guns which can hit the fort at ranges where the fort cannot reply, the duel is not necessarily so unequal. "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)

20 " When Molotov,” said the Marshal, “went to see Ribbentrop in Berlin in November of 1940 you got wind of it and sent an air raid.” I nodded. “When the alarm sounded Ribbentrop led the way down many flights of stairs to a deep shelter sumptuously furnished. When he got inside the raid had begun. He shut the door and said to Molotov: ‘Now here we are alone together. Why should we not divide?’ Molotov said: ‘What will England say?’ ‘England,’ said Ribbentrop, ‘is finished. She is no more use as a Power.’ ‘If that is so,’ said Molotov, ‘why are we in this shelter, and whose are these bombs which fall?’” *** "

― Winston S. Churchill , Their Finest Hour (The Second World War, #2)