Wit & Attitude Quote by Winston Churchill

Churchill’s line is war rhetoric at its most elegantly ruthless: a joke with teeth, designed to widen the moral battlefield. On the surface it’s a quip about praising the devil. Underneath, it’s a cold instruction to Parliament and the public: ideology is secondary to survival, and alliances are instruments, not friendships.

The context matters. Churchill is speaking in the shadow of Nazi power, when Britain’s options were narrowing and the Soviet Union - freshly invaded by Hitler in 1941 - suddenly shifted from pariah to necessary partner. Many in Britain (and certainly many Conservatives) loathed communism; Churchill himself had spent years warning about Bolshevism. The brilliance here is that he doesn’t pretend that hatred has evaporated. He dramatizes it. By invoking hell, Hitler, and the devil, he stages a moral pageant in which Nazi Germany becomes the absolute, the thing so corrosive that even literal evil becomes temporarily preferable.

The subtext is political management: he gives permission for uncomfortable coalition-building without asking the country to fall in love with its new allies. It’s also a performance of steadiness. Churchill signals that he will use any lever available - rhetorical, diplomatic, military - to crush Hitler, and he’ll do it without sentimental confusion.

The joke lands because it preserves moral hierarchy while embracing realpolitik. He can concede the devil’s existence, even grant him a polite reference, and still keep the audience’s compass fixed on the true enemy.