“Sleep of the Saved and Thankful”

I found a quotation which is attributed to Churchill: “Beware the sleeping dragon. For when she awakes, the Earth will shake.” This quote is often used in blogs and news stories; however, I cannot find its source. Was this in fact from Churchill?

Painting was virtually suspended during World War II, but Churchill took it up immediately after he was dismissed by the electorate in 1945. He made painting visits Lord Beaverbrook’s villa, “La Capponcina,” and in the mid-Fifties he was actively seeking a place of his own on the Riviera.

How many words did Sir Winston Churchill write?

"It was given to me to express what was in the hearts of the British people."

In a video at the Liverpool Museum (“The Power and the Glory?”), Churchill is quoted as saying that Britain, having gained prosperity by her efforts, must be prepared to defend it: “We have got all we want in territory, and our claim to be left in the unmolested enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions.” I am an American and large numbers of my fellow citizens seem to struggle with the same issue; Churchill’s words suggest an answer. When did he say or write this?

In late 2014, London’s Daily Mail produced a shock headline: “Winston Churchill's ‘bid to nuke Russia’ to win Cold War uncovered.” While the conversation is undoubtedly true, it is hardly new. It’s been known for decades that Churchill voiced such a thought several times in private conversation in 1946-47. What is not true is that Churchill ever “bid to nuke Russia.”

According to Roland Quinault in “The Cunarders” (History Today), in May 1943 for his trip to America aboard HMT Queen Mary, “Churchill insisted that 5000 German prisoners should also sail with them.” Why? As a prophylactic against torpedoing?

In his Hillsdale College Constitution Day lecture of 2011, Charles Krauthammer cites an amusing encounter between Churchill and Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee in the Members' Cloakroom of the House of Commons.

With the Nazis gazing at Dover’s cliffs from twenty miles across the English Channel, he “mobilized the English language,” as the journalist Ed Murrow remarked, “and sent it into battle.”

Even as Dockter aims to offer “a nuanced understanding” of Churchill and his character, his statements often disconcert the reader by their lack of firmness.

Despite Churchill’s own belief, he and Botha probably did not meet each other in the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). But they met afterward, and forged a notable friendship which lasted through World War I.

Woodrow Wilson was the kind of president we Americans elect from time to time, out of idealism or sentiment or wishful thinking, who proves inexperienced or unqualified—who fails, as Churchill put it, to “rise to the level of events.” Biographer Arthur Link described Wilson as “a virtuoso and a spellbinder during a time when the American people admired oratory above all other political skills.” But he was a party, not a national, leader.