âYou Have Enemies? Goodâ â Did Winston Churchill Say This Quote?
An image shared on Facebook credits British politician Winston Churchill with saying, âYou have enemies? Good. That means youâve stood up for something, sometime in your life.â
Verdict: False
There is no evidence that Churchill ever said or wrote this statement.
Fact Check:
âThere is no evidence in the nearly 20 million-word record of Winston Churchillâs writings to confirm this quote,â Tim Riley, chief curator at the National Churchill Museum, told The Daily Caller News Foundation in an email.
Indeed, the quote does not appear in the Churchill Archive, which contains around 800,000 original documents related to the statesman, or a complete collection of his written works.
Another expert, International Churchill Society Director of Publications David Freeman, confirmed in an email to TheDCNF that the saying isnât original to Churchill: âThat is indeed another chestnut of non-Churchillian vintage.â
Some blogs credit French writer Victor Hugo with penning the quote. A similar expression appears in a passage of his written work âThings Seen,â according to one website. âYou have enemies?â the quote reads. âWhy, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea.â