Lessons from Winston Churchill

We’ve watched a lot of Doctor Who. We enjoy watching and re-watching the Time Lord’s adventures. I get double joy because I use the real-life historical places and people to teach our home school history. Several episodes include former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He could be crass, but he also had a way of inspiring with words, so much so that many of his quotes continue to inspire today.

My focus lately has been on mindset, specifically, a positive perspective in even the most difficult of circumstances. Churchill certainly lived through challenging times. He served under six monarchs from Queen Victoria to Queen Elizabeth the Second. His political career spanned both world wars, numerous dictators, and other conflicts. Yet in spite of all this, in his own words, he remained an optimist. Here are a few of my favorite Churchill Quotes to inspire you.

• Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
• For myself I am an optimist — it does not seem to be much use being anything else.
• Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
• A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
• You never can tell whether bad luck may not after all turn out to be good luck.
• The true guide of life is to do what is right.
• Things are not always right because they are hard, but if they are right one much not mind if they are also hard.
• We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
• You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
• To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.
• I never worry about action, but only about inaction.
• Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

Your mindset matters. You can let everything bring you down and take a victim stance OR you can overcome adversity and be courageously victorious.