The Tears of Men: A Consideration

Tears can bring a healthy release of pent-up emotions and of deep grief. To show restraint, however, was and is a manly virtue as well.

Biographer William Manchester tells us “no man wept more easily” than Churchill. Yousuf Karsh. Library and Archives Canada, e010751643

Winston Churchill was a self-confessed blubberer. 

Biographer William Manchester tells us “no man wept more easily” than Churchill. Tears trickled from his eyes at the slightest provocation: a patriotic song, the bravery of Londoners during the Blitz, the death of a pet. Manchester tells us that Churchill even wept a river of tears watching “Never Take No for an Answer,” a hokey movie about a little boy whose donkey was dying. When the prime minister told the British people he had nothing to offer but “blood, toil, tears, and sweat,” he meant those tears literally.