It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; I consider the real vice is making losses.
Winston ChurchillRead
We used to be a source of fuel; we are increasingly becoming a sink. These supplies of foreign liquid fuel are no doubt vital to our industry, but our ever-increasing dependence upon them ought to arouse serious and timely reflection. The scientific utilisation, by liquefaction, pulverisation and other processes, or our vast and magnificent deposits of coal, constitutes a national object of prime importance.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the shift from being self-sufficient in energy to relying on external sources, emphasizing the importance of utilizing domestic resources.
Winston Churchill's quote highlights the concern over growing dependence on foreign fuel supplies, warning that reliance can undermine national strength and self-sufficiency. He urges for a focus on the responsible and innovative use of domestic coal resources, which he considers crucial for a nation's progress and security.
Themes
FuelDependencyInnovationResourcesCoal
In practice
Example use cases
In a sustainability conference, to emphasize the need for energy independence.
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
To observations which ourselves we make, we grow more partial for th' observer's sake.
Alexander PopeRead
Why should workers agree to be slaves in a basically authoritarian structure? They should have control over it themselves. Why shouldn't communities have a dominant voice in running the institutions that affect their lives?
Noam ChomskyRead
Imitation is the sincerest flattery.
Mahatma GandhiRead
My characters aren't losers. They're rebels. They win by their refusal to play by everyone else's rules.
Harold RamisRead
I have not yet spoken my last word about women. I believe that if a woman succeeds in withdrawing from the mass, or rather raising herself from above the mass, she grows ceaselessly and more than a man.
Arthur SchopenhauerRead
If oxen and lions had hands and could paint with their hands and produce works of art, as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods likes horses and oxen like oxen. Each would represent them with bodies according to the bodies of each. So the Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed; the Thracians give theirs red hair and blue eyes.
XenophanesRead