You Will Never Reach Your Destination If You Stop And Throw Stones

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“You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.” – Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill (1874 -1965), regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century, was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during WWII. He was also a British Army officer, a writer, a historian, and an artist. In 1953, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature for his six-volume set “The Second World War”. Ten years later, he became the first person to be made an honorary citizen of the United States.

After serving in the military and working as a war journalist, Churchill joined British politics and became a national figure at a very early age. Considered a maverick politician, he faced several political
oppositions. He was lauded for his social reforms and military support yet criticized and dubbed as a “right-wing extremist” for the controversies involving him and the military. In 1922, he was kicked out of the Liberal Party.

However, his value as a strategist was realized when Hitler became a threat to the European countries. Churchill was the leading advocate for British rearmament and a staunch critic of Prime Minister Chamberlain’s appeasement policy toward the Nazis. On the day British declared war on Germany, he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty and a member of the War Cabinet. Eventually, King George VI appointed him as Prime Minister and Minister of Defense.

What made him an effective leader and strategist was his resilience despite a handful of setbacks and criticisms. To quote him: “You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”