Claim:
Former U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill once stated, “When going through hell, keep moving ahead.” To rate, continue reading!
On the internet, Winston Churchill’s quotes often go viral for several years before eventually appearing as part of a Forbes story and on merchandise. According to posts that attribute his words as being his, Churchill once stated “If you are going through hell, keep moving.
(X user @visegrad24)
Our research could not find evidence of Churchill — who died in 1965 — using these words either in his writings or speeches, nor could variations appear across texts and the International Churchill Society, an organization dedicated to collecting his speeches and writings, could not locate this quote either; as such we class this claim as misattributed and rate it accordingly.
As part of our search, we first looked in Richard M. Langworth’s book on Churchill titled, ‘Churchill by Himself: In His Own Words” for similar quotes; unfortunately we came up empty handed there as well. But the quote could be found under “Red Herrings,” an appendix section dedicated to misattributed quotes by Churchill himself that Richard M. Langworth edited himself, serving as senior fellow with The Churchill Project at Hillsdale College as its editor.
The International Churchill Society – which bills itself as “member organization dedicated to honoring Sir Winston Churchill’s historical legacy” – disproved such claims on its website with a list of quotes falsely attributed to Churchill on display therein. As explained by its founders:
“Keep going”, often found online and printed onto motivation posters, cannot be accurately attributed. We have yet to locate it anywhere within Winston Churchill’s written or spoken words as this phrase cannot be found therein.
Quote Investigator, an independent research site dedicated to disproving quotes, discovered an early iteration of this phrase in 1943 paper “Christian Science Sentinel” journal from Boston Massachusetts written by editor John Randall Dunn who apparently noted (emphasis ours). It stated as follows (emphasis ours).
One time someone asked another man how he was feeling; in response he stated he was going through hell! A close friend replied “Well keep on going; that is no place to stop!” If you find yourself struggling through physical distress and are finding understanding elusive at this time, keep holding tightly onto Truth as often as you can and remember this message: My grace is sufficient for thee.” God knows what He’s doing as His child continues their spiritual growth: God, Divine Love will eventually overcome its power of pain like the summer sun melts stubborn frost away like sunbeams will melt stubborn frost away as sure as the summer sun will warm the earth once more.
We entered various variations of this quote into Churchill Archives Center’s digital repository at University of Cambridge; these searches did not yield any connection with Churchill.
Many have been linked with this quote, including TV personality Steve Harvey and self-help author Douglas Bloch; however, no definitive evidence links Churchill directly with it.
Not for the first time have we fact-checked an allegation made about Churchill without evidence to back it up; earlier we discovered his words to that effect are often misattributed – another misquotation could include “Success isn’t final; failure doesn’t equate with fatality: Courage to continue is what counts”.
