There is the solution which I respectfully offer to you in this Address to which I have given the title “The Sinews of Peace.”
At the beginning of this War megalomania was the only form of sanity.
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.
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.
We sit in calm, airy, silent rooms opening upon sunlit and embowered lawns, not a sound except of summer and of husbandry disturbs the peace; but seven million men, any ten thousand of whom could have annihilated the ancient armies, are in ceaseless battle from the Alps to the Ocean.
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.
Let us reconcile ourselves to the mysterious rhythm of our destinies, such as they must be in this world of space and time.
The is always much to be said for not attempting more than you can do and for making a certainty of what you try. But this principle, like others in life and war, has it exceptions.
There is only one duty, only one safe course, and that is to try to be right and not to fear to do or say what you believe to be right. That is the only way to deserve and to win the confidence of our great people in these days of trouble.
We must not lose our faculty to dare, particularly in dark days.
Hasty work and premature decisions may lead to penalties out of all proportion to the issues immediately involved.
I let the argument rip healthily between the departments. This is a very good way to finding out the truth.
The difference between mere management and leadership is communication.
Why should there not be a European group which could give a sense of enlarged patriotism and common citizenship to the distracted peoples of this turbulent and mighty continent? And why should it not take its rightful place with other great groupings and help to shape the onward destinies of men?
If Europe were once united in the sharing of its common inheritance there would be no limit to the happiness, the prosperity, and the glory which its 300,000,000 or 400,000,000 people would enjoy.
Nothing is won without enthusiasm.
The acts we engage in for appeasment today, we will have to remedy at far greater cost and remorse tomorrow.
If you don’t take change by the hand, it will take you by the throat.
Renown awaits the commander who first restores artillery to its prime importance on the battlefield.
Hess or no Hess, I’m going to watch the Marx Brothers.