Harold MacMillan famous quotes

No man succeeds without a good woman behind him. Wife or mother, if it is both, he is twice blessed indeed.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Mother #Blessed #Men

A man who trusts nobody is apt to be the kind of man nobody trusts.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Trust #Men #Kind

To be alive at all involves some risk.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Risk #Trying #Alive

Too many people live too much in the past. The past must be a springboard, not a sofa.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Future #Past #People

Memorial services are the cocktail parties of the geriatric set.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Fear #Party #Life And Death

If you don't believe in God, all you have to believe in is decency. Decency is very good. Better decent than indecent. But I don't think it's enough.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Believe #Thinking #Atheism

It has been said that there is no fool like an old fool, except a young fool. But the young fool has first to grow up to be an old fool to realize what a damn fool he was when he was a young fool.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Growing Up #Fool #Firsts

When the curtain falls, the best thing an actor can do is to go away.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Fall #Going Away #Actors

I am MacWonder one moment and MacBlunder the next.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Moments

Britain's most useful role is somewhere between bee and dinosaur.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Roles #Dinosaurs #Bees

Power? It's like a Dead Sea fruit. When you achieve it, there is nothing there.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Power #Sea #Fruit

After long experience of politics, I have never found that there is any inhibition caused by ignorance as regards criticism.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Ignorance #Long #Criticism

It's no use crying over spilt summits.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Use #Cry #Summit

I was a sort of son to Ike, and it was the other way round with Kennedy.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Son #Way

I read a great number of press reports and find comfort in the fact that they are nearly always conflicting.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Numbers #Comfort #Facts

As usual the Liberals offer a mixture of sound and original ideas. Unfortunately none of the sound ideas is original and none of the original ideas is sound.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Ideas #Sound #Usual

(A Foreign Secretary) is forever poised between the cliche and the indiscretion.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Forever #Cliche #Secretary

There might be 1 finger on the trigger, but there will be 15 fingers on the safety catch.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Safety #Might #Triggers

At home, you always have to be a politician; when you're abroad, you almost feel yourself a statesman.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Home #Politics #Politician

No man should ever lose sleep over public affairs.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Sleep #Men #Affair

A Foreign Secretaryand this applies also to a prospective Foreign Secretaryis always faced with this cruel dilemma. Nothing he can say can do very much good, and almost anything he may say may do a great deal of harm. Anything he says that is not obvious is dangerous; whatever is not trite is risky. He is forever poised between the cliche and the indiscretion.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Forever #May #Cliche

If people want a sense of purpose they should get it from their archbishop. They should certainly not get it from their politicians.
-- Harold MacMillan

#People #Want #Purpose

It is the duty of Her Majesty's government neither to flap nor to falter.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Government #Majesty #Duty

It was a storm in a tea cup, but in politics we sail in paper boats.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Tea #Storm #Paper

It is, of course, a trite observation to say that we live "in a period of transition." Many people have said this at many times. Adam may well have made the remark to Eve on leaving the Garden of Eden.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Garden #Eden #People

You can hardly say boo to a goose in the House of Commons now without cries of "Ungentlemanly," "Not fair" and all the rest.
-- Harold MacMillan

#House #Politics #Cry

Although I am still in favour of a National Government in these difficult times, and shall probably be found in the great majority of cases in the Government Lobby, there are some issues that have arisen, or are likely to arise, upon which I am unable to give the Government the support which it has, perhaps, the right to expect from those receiving the Government Whip. It occurs to me, therefore, that it would perhaps be more satisfactory if I was no longer regarded as being among the supporters of the present Administration.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Issues #Government #Giving

Churchill was fundamentally what the English call unstable - by which they mean anybody who has that touch of genius which is inconvenient in normal times.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Mean #Government #Genius

I'd like that translated, if I may.
-- Harold MacMillan

#May

It's a good thing to be laughed at. It's better than to be ignored.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Ignored #Good Things

We do not intend to part from the Americans and we do not intend to be satellites. I am sure they do not want us to be so. The stronger we are, the better partners we shall be; and I feel certain that as the months pass we shall draw continually closer together with mutual confidence and respect.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Together #Stronger #Want

You will find the Americans much as the Greeks found the Romans: great, big, vulgar, bustling people more vigorous than we are and also more idle, with more unspoiled virtues but also more corrupt.
-- Harold MacMillan

#People #Greek #Virtue

Most of our people have never had it so good.
-- Harold MacMillan

#People #History

History is apt to judge harshly those who sacrifice tomorrow for today.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Sacrifice #Judging #Today

We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Kings #Fall #Experts

Marxism is like a classical building that followed the Renaissance; beautiful in its way, but incapable of growth.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Beautiful #Growth #Renaissance

The wind of change is blowing through the continent. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Change #Wind #Political

Tradition does not mean that the living are dead, it means that the dead are living.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Mean #Doe #Tradition

One nanny said, "Feed a cold"; she was a neo-Keynesian. Another nanny said, "Starve a cold"; she was a monetarist.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Nannies #Cold #Economics

Stop-Go seemed more sensiblr than using the brake and accelerator at the same time - a practice that later became fashionable.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Practice #Economics #Brake

Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.
-- Harold MacMillan

#War

A successful current affairs television show seems to be more and more a cross between a music hall turn and a scene in a torture chamber.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Successful #Political #Television

The only quality needed for an MP is the ability to write a good letter.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Writing #Mps #Political

Revolt by all means, but only on one issue at a time. To do more would be to confuse the whips.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Mean #Issues #Political

There are three bodies no sensible man directly challenges: the Roman Catholic Church, the Brigade of Guards and the National Union of Mineworkers
-- Harold MacMillan

#Men #Catholic #Challenges

I was determined that no British government should be brought down by the action of two tarts.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Government #Two #Determined

It has been said that there is no fool like an old fool
-- Harold MacMillan

#Fool #Said

Once the bear's hug has got you, it is apt to be for keeps.
-- Harold MacMillan

#Hug #Bears