Never Give In!: The Best Of Winston Churchill's Speeches (2004) - Plot & Excerpts
A speech should stir one to action: either to cast off despair at the very least or at the most to plunge forward without looking back. No one since Churchill has had this effect in our modern day. He had the background that really none have in this age to lead in difficult times. I read this book because I thought if his speeches could have that much effect on a nation to stir it to win an impossible war, then surely it could help me with some words of encouragement to face the daily war of life. Not a day goes by in this age that somewhere people are struggling, even dying because of a connection of events we are part of, be they so insidiously innocuous as global commerce or so immediately terrible as the overthrow of a government. Our own life may not be what it once was and only God knows if it will be again. And then, if we are open to the world of others, if we are truly awake, we can't help but imagine the headlines we read as human eyes pleading, staring back at our mind and heart. One wants to hear something stirring every once in awhile in the midst of the war of plain hard life. After we have put on the Ephesianal armor and are ready for the daily battle, Churchill's speeches can be recalled to mind in those moments when they are needed most: when you need someone to tell you not to give up!
I saw this quote:"You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. Yet in their hearts there is unspoken - unspeakable! - fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts! Words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home, and all the more powerful because they are forbidden. These terrify them. A little mouse - a little tiny mouse! - of thought appears in the room and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic."and knew I had to read more by this man. will be getting it soon
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I read this entire book after reading Churchill's biography. His is one of the photos on the wall of my study.Amazing to me, how his warnings agains socialism are still true (and needed) today. Example: "Nationalisation! What an awful flop! Show me the nationalised industry which has not become a burden on the public either as taxpayers or consumers or both." (p 466)Perhaps he was write when he asked: "Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"(p 429)So - several famous speeches. Many that are relatively obscure, but still pure Churchillian genius.
—Fritz
