Question: Churchill Quotations

I recently saw an author on C-SPAN talking about Winston Churchill. I am going to paraphrase as best I can from memory what he said in an anecdote about Churchill having been asked once if he was concerned or fearful about the British or English communist party.

He said Churchill replied something along these lines: "No, of course not. Why should I be? They are Englishmen, after all!" Can you verify that Churchill said this?

This quote is quite popular from people on the right but The Churchill Centre says it's falsely attibuted to Churchill... Is that correct in your opinion?

"If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain."

Answer: Churchill Quotations

Here’s a good Churchill quote to start this answer, courtesy of Rad Reffer Jenna and The Book of Unusual Quotations (p. 232)

I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel. He replied, "Verify your quotations."?

First quotation: "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain."

Besides the Churchill Centre, www.winstonchurchill.org, saying that this quote is misattributed to Churchill, we also found other references saying that it was not Churchill who said this. (McManus, Terry. "A Democratic Medium Plays Big 2000 Role …" Advertising Age 11 October 1999) As well we checked all the sources listed below. From all this information the most likely conclusion is that the quotation can't be attributed to Churchill.

Second Quotation: "No, of course not. Why should I be? They are Englishmen, after all!"

We could not attribute this quotation to Churchill. The sources checked are below.

Another time-consuming option (which we didn’t do) would be go through Winston Churchill’s complete speeches and papers, see “Additional Sources" below.

You can find out if your local library has these sources at RedLightGreen

Online Sources

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Oxford Reference Online Quotations
LexisNexis Major Newspapers
ProQuest Historical Newspapers
Times of London Digital Archive

Print Sources

The Times Book of Quotations (2000)
Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations (2002)
Cassell Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1996)
Man and Affairs: a Modern Miscellany (1967)
Familiar Quotations (1980)
Everyman's Dictionary of Quotations and Proverbs (1951)
Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotable Definitions (1988)
Dictionary of Literary Quotations (1990)
Dictionary of Quotations (1968)
Macmillan Dictionary of Quotations (1989)
Contemporary Quotations (1964)
Respectfully Quoted: a Dictionary of Quotations Requested from the
Congressional Research Service. US GPO 1989
The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations (1996)
The Book of Unusual Quotations (1957)

Churchill Specific Sources

Churchill, Winston, Sir, 1874-1965 and Halle, Kay comp. Irrepressible Churchill; a treasury of Winston Churchill's wit. Cleveland, World Pub. Co. 1985.
Churchill, Winston, Sir, 1874-1965 .The sayings of Winston Churchill / edited by J.L. Lane ; with an introduction by Robert Blake. London : Duckworth, 1992.

Additional Sources

Churchill, Winston, Sir, 1874-1965. The collected works of Sir Winston Churchill. London: Library of Imperial History, 1973-1976.
Churchill, Winston, Sir, 1874-1965. Winston S. Churchill: his complete speeches, 1897-1963. Edited by Robert Rhodes James. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1974.