Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.

Churchill’s remark is rooted in his early experience as a war correspondent and soldier in Britain’s late‑Victorian imperial campaigns. In 1898 he joined the 21st Lancers in the Sudan and took part in the Battle of Omdurman, later describing the charge and the sensation of being under fire in his book The River War. The line reflects the bravado and adrenaline of surviving combat—an attitude Churchill sometimes expressed in his youthful writings about warfare, risk, and personal courage, before his later, more sober reflections shaped by the First and Second World Wars.

The sentence is a paradox: being shot at is terrifying, yet “without result” (i.e., surviving unhurt) converts fear into exhilaration. Churchill captures the intoxicating rush of narrowly escaping death, a feeling that can be mistaken for heroism or proof of destiny. The quote also hints at the psychological seduction of war—how danger can become thrilling and even addictive when it ends in survival. Read critically, it exposes a romantic, youthful martial sensibility: the pleasure comes not from violence itself but from the confirmation of one’s continued life and luck in the face of lethal chance.

1) "There is nothing in life so exhilarating as to be shot at without result." 2) "Nothing is so exhilarating in life as to be shot at and missed."