It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; I consider the real vice is making losses.
Winston ChurchillRead
I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Focusing on past grievances can hinder progress and future opportunities.
This quote by Winston Churchill emphasizes the importance of moving forward rather than getting entangled in past conflicts. It suggests that dwelling on disputes or issues from the past can prevent us from seizing opportunities and making progress in the present and future. By prioritizing reconciliation and growth over quarreling, we can ensure a better path ahead.
Themes
FuturePastPresentProgressQuarrel
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about teamwork, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of focusing on present goals rather than past conflicts.
More from Winston Churchill
All quotes βThe 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
All the higher, more penetrating ideals are revolutionary. They present themselves far less in the guise of effects of past experience than in that of probable causes of future experience, factors to which the environment and the lessons it has so far taught us must learn to bend.
William JamesRead
We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.
John Stuart MillRead
All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods.
William JamesRead
Better use has been made of association and this powerful instrument of action has been applied for more varied aims in America than anywhere else in the world.
Alexis De TocquevilleRead
Truth does not belong to an individual.
Jiddu KrishnamurtiRead
I do not want to convince Christians to work for the abolition of war, but rather I want us to live recognizing that in the cross of Christ, war has been abolished.
Stanley HauerwasRead