To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.

Woe betide the leaders now perched on their dizzy pinnacles of triumph if they cast away at the conference table what the soldiers had won on a hundred bloodsoaked battlefields.

I am convinced that there is no smarter, handier, or more adaptable body of troops in the world.

The whole of northern Norway was covered with snow to depths which none of our soldiers had ever seen, felt, or imagined. There were neither snow-shoes nor skis - still less skiers. We must do our best. Thus began this ramshackle campaign.

There is no surer method of economizing and saving money than in the reduction of the number of officials.

We have taken a grave and hazardous decision to sustain the Greeks and try to make a Balkan Front.

...the high roads of the future will be clear, not only for us but for all, not only for our time but for a century to come.