The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

Speeches of Lord Randolph Churchill’ (1884)
Ulster will fight; Ulster will be right.
Public letter, 7 May 1886, in R. F. Foster ‘Lord Randolph Churchill’ (1981) p. 258
An old man in a hurry.
Referring to Gladstone, in election Address to the Electors of South Paddington, 19 June 1886, in W. S.
Churchill ‘Lord Randolph Churchill’ (1906) vol. 2, p. 491
All great men make mistakes. Napoleon forgot Blücher, I forgot Goschen.
In ‘Leaves from the Notebooks of Lady Dorothy Nevill’ (1907) p. 21
3.99 Sir Winston Churchill 1874-1965
A labour contract into which men enter voluntarily for a limited and for a brief period, under
which they are paid wages which they consider adequate, under which they are not bought or sold
and from which they can obtain relief...on payment of £17.10s, the cost of their passage, may not
be a healthy or proper contract, but it cannot in the opinion of His Majesty’s Government be
classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological
inexactitude.
Speech, ‘Hansard’ 22 February 1906, col. 555
He is one of those orators of whom it was well said, ‘Before they get up, they do not know
what they are going to say; when they are speaking, they do not know what they are saying; and
when they have sat down, they do not know what they have said.’
Speech, ‘Hansard’ 20 December 1912, col. 1893 (referring to Lord Charles Beresford)
Business carried on as usual during alterations on the map of Europe.
The motto of the British people, in speech at Guildhall, 9 November 1914: ‘Complete Speeches’ (1974) vol.
3, p. 2341
The whole map of Europe has been changed...but as the deluge subsides and the waters fall
short we see the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone emerging once again.
Speech, ‘Hansard’ 16 February 1922, col. 1270
I remember, when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum’s circus, which
contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the programme which I
most desired to see was the one described as ‘The Boneless Wonder’. My parents judged that that
spectacle would be too revolting and demoralizing for my youthful eyes, and I have waited 50
years to see the boneless wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench.
Speech, ‘Hansard’ 28 January 1931, col. 1021 (referring to Ramsay Macdonald)
So they [the Government] go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to
be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent.
Speech, ‘Hansard’ 12 November 1936, col. 1107
Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting
hungry.
Letter, 11 November 1937, in ‘Step by Step’ (1939) p. 186. ‘Concise Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs’ under
rides