Blood , toil , tears , and sweat The phrase blood , toil , tears and sweat became famous in a speech given by Winston Churchill to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom on 13 May 1940 . Background . This was Churchill ' s first speech on 13 May 1940 to the House after having been offered the King ' s commission the previous Friday , to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the first year of World War II . Churchill had replaced Neville Chamberlain on 10 May , and in this speech he asked the House to declare its confidence in his Government . The motion passed unanimously . This was the first of three speeches which he gave during the period of the Battle of France . History of the phrase . Churchill had used similar phrases earlier , as " Their sweat , their tears , their blood " in 1931 and " new structures of national life erected upon blood , sweat , and tears " . Churchill ' s sentence , " I have nothing to offer but blood , toil , tears , and sweat , " has been called a paraphrase of one uttered on 2 July 1849 by Giuseppe Garibaldi when rallying his revolutionary forces in Rome : " I offer hunger , thirst , forced marches , battle , and death . " As a young man , Churchill had considered writing a biography of Garibaldi . Theodore Roosevelt uttered a phrase similar to Churchill ' s in an address to the Naval War College on 2 June 1897 , following his appointment as Assistant Secretary of the Navy : " Every man among us is more fit to meet the duties and responsibilities of citizenship because of the perils over which , in the past , the nation has triumphed ; because of the blood and sweat and tears , the labor and the anguish , through which , in the days that have gone , our forefathers moved on to triumph . " Churchill ' s line has been called a " direct quotation " from Roosevelt ' s speech . Churchill , a keen soldier , was likely to have read works by Theodore Roosevelt , who was a widely published military historian ; it is also possible he read the speech after being appointed First Lord of the Admiralty , a position similar to Roosevelt ' s . Other versions of the phrase are " It [ poetry ] is forged slowly and painfully , link by link , with blood and sweat and tears " ( Lord Alfred Douglas , 1919 ) , " Blood , sweat , and tear - wrung millions " ( Lord Byron , 1823 ) , and " . . . mollifie / It with thy teares , or sweat , or blood " ( John Donne , 1611 ) . In Latin , Cicero and Livy had used the phrase " sweat and blood " . Excerpts . We are in the preliminary stage of one of the greatest battles in history . . . That we are in action at many points – in Norway and in Holland — , that we have to be prepared in the Mediterranean . That the air battle is continuous , and that many preparations have to be made here at home . I would say to the House as I said to those who have joined this government : I have nothing to offer but blood , toil , tears and sweat . We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind . We have before us many , many long months of struggle and of suffering . You ask , what is our aim ? I can answer in one word : Victory . Victory at all costs — Victory in spite of all terror — Victory , however long and hard the road may be , for without victory there is no survival . Reaction . Churchill had not been the preferred choice of most Conservatives to succeed Chamberlain , but the motion on 13 May " That this House welcomes the formation of a Government representing the united and inflexible resolve of the nation to prosecute the war with Germany to a victorious conclusion " passed unanimously . He had been unpopular in certain precincts since the 1930s and MPs had ignored or heckle d his speeches denouncing the prime minister ' s appeasement policy toward Germany ; even others who opposed Chamberlain avoided him . One historian has described the speech ' s effect on Parliament , however , as " electrifying . . . He was still speaking at the House of Commons , but it was now listening , and cheering . " Other great speeches followed , including the " We shall fight on the beaches " speech of 4 June and the " This was their finest hour " speech of 18 June , and were a great inspiration and unifying force to Britain after its defeats in the first year of the war . Trivia . On 26 April 2013 , the Bank of England announced that beneath a portrait of Churchill the phrase " I have nothing to offer but blood , toil , tears and sweat . " is to adorn the new 5 pound note which is to be issued from 2016 onwards .