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Masters of Chiasmus: Winston Churchill (Part 1)

Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Churchill delivered these famous words in a 1942 speech at London's Mansion House, just after the British routed Rommel's forces at Alamein, driving German troops out of Egypt. The battle marked a turning point in the war, leading Churchill to write in his memoirs, "Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat."

Churchill may have borrowed the first part of the expression from Talleyrand, who said, "It is the beginning of the end" after losing a battle in Napoleon's 1812 Russian campaign. There is also evidence that the entire thought was in Churchill's mind decades before WWII. British writer John Campbell reported Churchill saying virtually the same thing about the Battle of the Marne in 1914. According to Campbell, Churchill "remembered and tucked [it] away for use again twenty-seven years later."

From a World War II speech, Churchill is referring to Hitler in this well-known observation.

I've found a number of versions of this quote, and I'm sure Churchill expressed the sentiment in different ways on different occasions—especially when someone made a critical comment about his legendary fondness for liquor. One other popular version begins with the words, "Always remember that I have … ." and the following was reported to be his response when offered a drink at a Washington, DC banquet during WWII: "I accept it for many reasons. One, because I am thirsty, and another, because I have gotten more out of alcohol in the course of my life than alcohol has gotten out of me!"

Many stories about Churchill's imbibing are told and re-told. The most popular has to do with a lady (in some versions, Lady Astor, in others Bessie Braddock) who approached a tipsy Sir Winston at a party and announced indignantly, "Mr. Churchill, you are drunk." "Yes I am," replied Churchill, "And you, madam are ugly. But I shall be sober tomorrow."

This intriguing observation comes from a speech Churchill made in the House of Commons on October 28, 1944. Churchill made the speech during the rebuilding of the House of Commons, which had sustained heavy bombing damage during the Battle of Britain. A 1960 Time magazine article provided a slightly different version (it's also possible Churchill said it in different ways on separate occasions): "We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us." Embedded in the observation is a profound architectural truth that applies to all buildings, public and private. In the beginning, buildings reflect the qualities of the people who design and construct them. Once built, the people who live and work in them take on the qualities of the buildings they inhabit.

I've had this quote in my collection for many years and don't recall where it originally came from. To my mind, it captures the nature of a man who experienced a number of calamities in his lifetime, and made opportunities out of each and every one of them. The observation has been attributed to a number of other people, and I'm not sure if the quote is original with Churchill or whether he was simply repeating a popular saying.

"All babies look like me. But then, I look like all babies."

The irrepressible Churchill apparently said this in response to a friend who remarked, "Winston! How wonderfully your new grandson resembles you!"

Regarded by his contemporaries as a great orator, many people sought Churchill's advice about speechmaking. One day, a young member of Parliament asked, "Mr. Churchill, You heard my talk yesterday. Can you tell me how I could have put more fire in my speech?" It was a rare opportunity, and Churchill forged a perfect chiastic reply by reversing the man's words. It's probable that the inspiration for Churchill's response was a line from Charles Caleb Colton's 1820 book, Lacon: "In good truth, we should have a glorious conflagration, if all who cannot put fire into their works, would only consent to put their works into the fire."

Often wrongly cited as his last words, Churchill said this on his 75th birthday on November 30, 1950, in response to a reporter who asked him if he had any fear of death. Churchill was in rare form that day. When the press arrived, one awestruck photographer said to him, "I hope, sir, that I will shoot your picture on your hundredth birthday." Churchill looked the young man over and, to the great amusement of those assembled, replied, "I don't see why not, young man. You look reasonably fit and healthy."

This couplet is interesting because it is Churchill's one and only attempt at poetry. In A Churchill Reader, Colin R. Coote describes it as Churchill's "only indulgence in verse of any kind." Coote adds, "Not a single poem has ever been attributed to him; and that is strange in one with so deep a sense of rhythm … It is queer that one with such a fine taste in words should not have tried his hand at serious verse."

Churchill said in The Second World War, Vol. VI that he wrote the couplet "for private use" after sending the following message to FDR in January, 1945 about the upcoming Big Three conference in Yalta: "We shall be delighted if you will come to Malta. I shall be awaiting on the quay. Everything can be arranged to your convenience. No more let us falter! From Malta to Yalta! Let nobody alter!" Churchill had invited Roosevelt to a preliminary meeting in Yalta before their scheduled meeting with Stalin, but FDR declined the invitation, fearing Stalin would be suspicious about a pre-conference deal that excluded the Russians.

Au clair de la lune! Si vous bombardez nous— nous bombardez vous!

In the 1960 book Irrepressible Churchill, K. Halle reports that Churchill was overheard saying this at a dinner meeting with August Nogues, the President General of Morocco, who Churchill suspected of having Nazi sympathies. Translated, it goes, "By the light of the moon! If you bombard us—we bombard you!" Churchill spoke a heavily Anglicized version of French that so bothered some people they felt compelled to correct him (feedback he usually took with good humor). He once quipped to Anthony Eden, "Will you please stop translating my French into French!" His most memorable French faux pas came when he said in a Paris speech: Quand je considère mon derrière, je constate qu'il est divisé en deuz parties égales. What he meant to say was, "When I consider what is behind me…" but in fact said, "When I consider my behind, I can state that it is divided into two equal parts."

This quote comes from The Memoirs of Anthony Eden. In it, Churchill characterizes the dilemma of a Foreign Secretary, who is not a free agent when it comes to disclosure and deception. The observation brings to mind Churchill's most famous remark about truth in wartime, which he said Stalin "greatly appreciated" when he shared it with him in 1943: "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

I was delighted to discover that Churchill's first official words in Parliament included this chiastic put-down of prime minister David Lloyd George. Behind the quote lies an interesting story, which Churchill describes in his 1930 book, A Roving Commission: My Early Life. Churchill says he was extremely nervous as he prepared to make his first speech in the House of Commons in 1901. His turn to talk came after a highly animated speech by Lloyd George. Churchill expected the prime minister to make a motion regarding a particular amendment, and was surprised—and totally unprepared—when he didn't. When it was his turn to speak, the nervous young Churchill could think of nothing to say. He confided later, "A sense of alarm and even despair crept across me." At that moment, in a hushed whisper, a fellow MP by the name of Bowles suggested the foregoing remark to Churchill. Here's how Sir Winston finished the story, metaphorically describing his enormous sense of relief: "I was up before I knew it, and reciting Tommy Bowles's rescuing sentence. It won a general cheer … . I could already see the shore … I could scramble up the beach, breathless physically, dripping metaphorically, but safe… . The usual restoratives were applied and I sat in a comfortable coma till I was strong enough to go home."

From a 1915 House of Commons speech, Churchill is referring to World War I—the first great "modern" war—in which ultimate victory didn't hinge on one or two great battles, as was true in the past, but on the cumulative effect of a multitude of forces, patterns, and developments.

The point of this remark is that, in financial affairs, what feels good is often bad to do, and vice versa. Churchill's observation is similar to the advice many financial advisors give their clients, which goes something like this: "Free spending feels good in the short term, but is ultimately unwise; while financial discipline is the wise course ultimately, even though it generally doesn't feel so good while you're doing it."

 Continue to Part 2

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