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Who really said it

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others

Not Aristotle — actually Winston Churchill Winston Churchill 1874–1965 · British statesman & author
Disputed In copyright

This is a genuine Winston Churchill line, not Aristotle. He wrote it in his 1931 profile of Spain’s King Alfonso XIII — “Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because, as has been said, it is the quality which guarantees all others” — first published in Collier’s magazine (27 June 1931) and reprinted in Great Contemporaries (1937). The popular version drops Churchill’s own hedge “as has been said” and, since about 2010, has been widely mis-credited to Aristotle. Nothing like it appears in Aristotle’s writings.

Last verified 8 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others” Winston Churchill, "Alfonso XIII" (Collier's, 1931; reprinted in Great Contemporaries, 1937) — often misattributed to Aristotle

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Aristotle. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The Estate of Sir Winston S. Churchill (Curtis Brown), and original publisher of Collier’s / Great Contemporaries). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Winston Churchill — British Prime Minister, war leader & Nobel-laureate author. Theme: "Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The real source

Author
Winston S. Churchill
Essay
“Alfonso XIII” (“Alfonso the Unlucky”)
First published
Collier’s, 27 June 1931 (p. 49); reprinted in Great Contemporaries (1937)
Precursor
Samuel Johnson, 1775 (recorded by Boswell, 1791)

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because, as has been said, it is the quality which guarantees all others. Courage, physical and moral, King Alfonso has proved on every occasion of personal danger or political stress.

Churchill’s own words, from his character sketch of King Alfonso XIII. Note the phrase “as has been said” — Churchill signalling he was echoing an earlier thought, most likely Samuel Johnson’s.

Quote Investigator: the full origin trace

How we verified this

  • 1775 — the seed. Samuel Johnson tells Boswell that “courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other,” per Quote Investigator’s trace of Boswell’s Life of Johnson.
  • 1931 — Churchill writes the line. In his essay on King Alfonso XIII, published in Collier’s, Churchill coins the polished modern wording, as documented by Quote Investigator and the International Churchill Society.
  • 1952 — the streamlined line spreads. The polished modern wording first surfaces in print without attribution — in The Bernardsville News of New Jersey (27 March 1952) — and is only credited to Churchill in other US newspapers later that year, such as The Cincinnati Enquirer of Ohio (7 June 1952), per Quote Investigator.
  • By 2010 — the Aristotle myth. The line begins circulating online under Aristotle’s name (e.g. on Goodreads), a misattribution QI finds no basis for in Aristotle’s works.
In copyright

The line was first published in June 1931 (in Collier’s) and reprinted in Great Contemporaries (1937). Under US law a work published in 1931 remains in copyright through 2026 (entering the public domain on 1 January 2027), so as of 2026 this text is in copyright, controlled by the Churchill literary estate and the original publishers.

Fact-check

How Aristotle got the credit

The line is a genuine 20th-century Churchill sentence, but the internet has repackaged it as ancient Greek wisdom. Here is who really deserves the credit — and who doesn’t.

Aristotle Fabricated attribution

No such sentence exists in Aristotle’s works. The polished English phrasing is unmistakably Churchill’s 1931 wording; the Aristotle credit only appears online from roughly 2010 onward (e.g. on Goodreads), with no ancient source, as Quote Investigator documents.

“as has been said” is dropped Altered text

Churchill actually wrote “…the first of human qualities, because, as has been said, it is the quality which guarantees all others.” The circulating version deletes his hedge — the very words in which he acknowledged he was echoing an earlier thinker, per QI.

Samuel Johnson (1775) Idea, not wording

Churchill’s “as has been said” most likely nods to Johnson’s remark, recorded by Boswell, that “courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.” Johnson supplied the thought, not this phrasing (QI).

Bottom line: these are Winston Churchill’s words from 1931, echoing Samuel Johnson — not Aristotle, who never wrote anything of the kind, per Quote Investigator.

Context

Why it resonates

Churchill placed courage at the base of every other virtue — a claim that carried extra weight coming from a man who would soon rally a nation under bombardment. He offered it not as abstract philosophy but as praise for a specific person, King Alfonso XIII of Spain, whose “physical and moral” courage he admired.

The sentence’s clean, aphoristic shape is exactly what makes it so quotable — and so easy to detach from its author and re-pin onto a more ancient-sounding name.

“Courage … is the quality which guarantees all others.”

The Johnson connection

Churchill’s phrase “as has been said” is the tell. Decades earlier the idea had been voiced by Samuel Johnson, whose conversation Boswell preserved: courage matters most because without it no other virtue is safe.

Churchill didn’t claim originality for the thought — only for its memorable modern form. The irony is that a later age stripped away both his hedge and his name, and handed the whole thing to Aristotle.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Courage Character

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: full origin tracequoteinvestigator.com

Authoritative investigation dating the line to Churchill (1931), with the Johnson precursor and the 1952 and Aristotle-misattribution timeline.
International Churchill Societywinstonchurchill.org

Churchill scholars confirm the line comes from his 1931 King Alfonso XIII profile, later a chapter of Great Contemporaries.
Wikiquote: Winston Churchillen.wikiquote.org

Reference collection of sourced and disputed Churchill quotations.
Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnsongutenberg.org

Full text of Boswell’s Life, source of Johnson’s 1775 remark that courage secures every other virtue.
Goodreads (Churchill quote page)goodreads.com

Shows the streamlined quote circulating online — the ecosystem where the Aristotle and Churchill credits both spread.

The real author

About Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill

1874–1965 · British Prime Minister, war leader & Nobel-laureate author

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill led Britain through the Second World War and won the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature for his historical and biographical writing. Beyond his speeches, he was a prolific author and journalist; his 1937 collection Great Contemporaries gathered magazine profiles of the era’s leaders — including the essay on King Alfonso XIII in which this reflection on courage appears.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Winston S. Churchill, “Alfonso XIII,” Collier’s, June 27, 1931, 49; reprinted in Great Contemporaries (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1937). Earliest documented and traced by Quote Investigator (2019).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/courage-is-rightly-esteemed-the-first-of-human-qualities

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