Never give up; never, never, never give up.

One of my favorite quotes is "Never give up; never, never, never give up." For me, this quote sums up a few things about Churchill. The most impressive thing about him, to me, was not just that he was right, but that he never doubted for a second that he WAS right. First and foremost, he never gave up on himself. While everyone around him was (somewhat understandably), reluctant to rock the boat, he was saying (in so many words), "We have to stand up to this guy. It's going to suck, but we gotta do it, and you know I'm right." Deep down, the rest of England knew he was right. But England had just been through World War I, and all Europeans know something about war that most Americans do not: How much it sucks. War meant risk of death, of course, but it also meant food shortages, dismal news reports, having to volunteer as a nurse in a grungy hospital, or hide out in trenches filled with poo, and watching your country's important stuff get blown up. I mean, seriously. I don't blame people for wishful thinking. Winston was saying from the beginning, "We're going to have to fight and there's really no way around it," but nobody wanted to listen and they didn't really get it until they were all hiding out in tube stations because now Germany was coming after THEM. So Winston was right. He must have felt vindicated, but he also knew it would happen eventually. I would love to be that sure of anything, just once. 

Of course, getting everybody on board was just the beginning -- now he had to keep them from jumping ship, like the French did. So now he's saying "Now that we're in this, we have to win, or die trying, and nobody can give up or the whole thing will fall apart." He was also saying, "Never doubt that we ARE going to win. The Americans ARE going to help us." And because he had been right before, people were willing to bet he was right this time. He kept everybody going. Considering how hard it is just to a group of friends to agree on a time and place to meet for diner, leadership on that level is just really damn cool.  

This quote is inspiring because Churchill himself never gave up on his own belief, which was that appeasement wasn't going to work and England had to fight. He never gave up on himself. And, perhaps most amazingly, he never gave up on everybody else.