When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now it is thoroughly out of hand, we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure

“When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now it is thoroughly out of hand, we apply too late the remedies which then might have effected a cure. There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as the Sibylline books. It falls into that long dismal catalogue of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong –these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”


Winston Churchill, to the House of Commons, May 2, 1936