Never Give In!

For my first blog entry, here's an excerpt from what is perhaps Winston Churchill's most famous speech, given at Harrow School on October 29, 1941:

You cannot tell from appearances how things will go.

Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done.

Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination.

But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period . . . this is the lesson:

Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never

--in nothing, great or small, large or petty

--never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.

Never yield to force.

Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished.

All this tradition of ours . . . this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.

Very different is the mood today.

Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate.

But instead our country stood in the gap.

There was no flinching and no thought of giving in.

And by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer.

Do not let us speak of darker days.

Let us speak rather of sterner days.

These are not dark days.

These are great days--the greatest days our country has ever lived.

And we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable.