It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; I consider the real vice is making losses.
Winston ChurchillRead
It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed...I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives, such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction, however impressive.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Churchill advocates for focused military objectives rather than indiscriminate bombing to instill fear.
In this quote, Winston Churchill reflects on the ethics and effectiveness of wartime strategies, suggesting that bombing German cities for terror's sake is not a satisfactory approach. He emphasizes the importance of targeting specific military objectives that could weaken the enemy's capacity to fight, rather than resorting to random acts of destruction that serve only to instill fear, thus calling for a more strategic and principled approach to warfare.
Themes
WarStrategyEthicsMilitaryTerror
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about the ethics of warfare, this quote could be presented to highlight the importance of strategic bombing.
More from Winston Churchill
All quotes →The United States is like a gigantic boiler. Once the fire is lit under it, there's no limit to the power it can generate.
Winston ChurchillRead
Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.
Winston ChurchillRead
I will not pretend that if I had to choose between communism and Nazism I would choose communism.
Winston ChurchillRead
Mountaintops inspire leaders but valleys mature them.
Winston ChurchillRead
True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.
Winston ChurchillRead
Similar quotes
That the speech of self-disclosure should be translatable seems to me very odd, but I am convinced that it is. The conclusion that I draw is that the only quality which all human being without exception possess is uniqueness: any characteristic, on the other hand, which one individual can be recognized as having in common with another, like red hair or the English language, implies the existence of other individual qualities which this classification excludes.
W. H. AudenRead
I never had a problem with my face on screen. I thought it is what it is, and I was turned off by actors and actresses that tried to keep themselves young.
Robert RedfordRead
One cannot prescribe to anyone whether he should follow an ethic of absolute ends or an ethic of responsibility.
Max WeberRead
Gods always behave like the people who make them.
Zora Neale HurstonRead
Never to get lost is not to live, not to know how to get lost brings you to destruction.
Rebecca SolnitRead
The darkness which clings to every personality is the door into the unconscious and the gateway of dreams, from which those two twilight figures, the shadow and the anima, step into our nightly visions or, remaining invisible, take possession of our ego-consciousness.
Carl JungRead