On Winston Churchill's 40th birthday, Margot Asquith, the wife of British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, wrote the following entry in her diary:
Winston Churchill was 40 today. I wrote and congratulated him on his youth. He has done a great deal for a man of 40. When I look round and see as I do a few young men of 35 with amazing brains and see how much less they have done knowing that superiority of character pure and simple is not exactly what Winston has got 'I put myself the question' ... What is it that gives Winston his preeminence? It certainly is not his mind. I said long ago and with truth that Winston has a noisy mind. Certainly not his judgement—he is constantly very wrong indeed ... and roughly speaking he is always wrong in his judgement about people. It is of course his courage and colour—his amazing mixture of industry and enterprise. He can and does always—all ways put himself in the pool.- William K. Klingaman
