Victory--Victory at All Costs

This is an excerpt from a speech by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, former president of Brigham Young University, Provo, quoting inspiring words from Winston Churchill during WWII:

On 10 May 1940, as the specter of Nazi infamy moved relentlessly toward the English Channel, Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was summoned to the post of Prime Minister of England. He hastily formed a government and on May 13 went before the House of Commons with his maiden speech.

"I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.'"

"We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all our strength that God can give us. . . .That is our policy. You ask, What is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory--victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror; victory, however long and hard the road may be." [Churchill: the Life Triumphant, American Heritage, 1965, p. 90]

Six days later he went on radio to speak to the world at large. He said:

"This is one of the most awe-striking periods in the long history of France and Britain. . . . Behind us . . . gather a group of shattered States and bludgeoned races: the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Dutch, the Belgians--upon all of whom the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall." [Churchill, p. 91]

Then two weeks later he was back before Parliament. "We shall not flag or fail," he vowed.

"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." [Churchill, p. 91]