"[[Winston Churchill]] had a productive life. **He first saw combat at age twenty-one, and wrote his first bestselling book about it not long after. By twenty-six, he’d been elected to public office and would serve in government for the next six and half decades**. He’d write some ten million words and over forty books, paint more than five hundred paintings, and **give some twenty-three hundred speeches** in the course of his time on this planet. In between all that, he managed to hold the positions of minister of defense, first lord of the admiralty, chancellor of the exchequer, and of course, prime minister of Britain, where he helped save the world from the Nazi menace. Then, to top it off, he spent his twilight years fighting the totalitarian communist menace. “**It is a pushing age**,” [[Winston Churchill|Churchill]] wrote his mother as a young man, “**and we must shove with the rest**.” It may well be that **[[Winston Churchill]] was the greatest pusher in all of history**. His life spanned the final cavalry charge of the [[British Empire]], which he witnessed as a young war correspondent in 1898, and ended well into the nuclear age, indeed the space age, both of which he helped usher in. His first trip to America was on a steamship (to be introduced on stage by [[Mark Twain]], no less), and his final one on a Boeing 707 that flew at 500 miles per hour. In between he saw two world wars, the invention of the car, radio, and rock and roll, and countless trials and triumphs." ([Location 1812](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07QY3CZ9L&location=1812)) --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[parenting]], [[resilience]], [[adversity]], [[conflict]] **Source** -- [[202409180133 - B - Stillness is the Key]]