Harold MacMillan Quotes


"It is the duty of Her Majesty's government neither to flap nor to falter."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Government, Duty)

"At home, you always have to be a politician; when you're abroad, you almost feel yourself a statesman."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Home)

"Marxism is like a classical building that followed the Renaissance; beautiful in its way, but incapable of growth."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Growth, Building, Marxism)

"No man should ever lose sleep over public affairs."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Man, Public, Sleep)

"No man succeeds without a good woman behind him. Wife or mother, if it is both, he is twice blessed indeed."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Mother, Wife, Man, Woman)

"Once the bear's hug has got you, it is apt to be for keeps."
- Harold MacMillan
"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
(Related: First, Fool, Old)

"There might be 1 finger on the trigger, but there will be 15 fingers on the safety catch."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Safety, Will)

"It's no use crying over spilt summits."
- Harold MacMillan
"Tradition does not mean that the living are dead, it means that the dead are living."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Living, Tradition)

"We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Experts, Kings, Right)

"When the curtain falls, the best thing an actor can do is to go away."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Actor)

"Power? It's like a Dead Sea fruit. When you achieve it, there is nothing there."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Power, Nothing, Sea)

"A man who trusts nobody is apt to be the kind of man nobody trusts."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Man)

"Memorial services are the cocktail parties of the geriatric set."
- Harold MacMillan
"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
(Related: Ideas, Liberals, Sound)

"In long experience I find that a man who trusts nobody is apt to be the kind of man nobody trusts."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Experience, Man)

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

"Britain's most useful role is somewhere between bee and dinosaur."
- Harold MacMillan
"He is forever poised between a cliche and an indiscretion."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Indiscretion)

"I read a great number of press reports and find comfort in the fact that they are nearly always conflicting."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Comfort, Fact, Press)

"I was a sort of son to Ike, and it was the other way round with Kennedy."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Son)

"I was determined that no British government should be brought down by the action of two tarts."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Government, Action)

"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
(Related: People, Purpose, Politicians, Sense, Want)

"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
(Related: God, Decency)

"I have never found, in a long experience of politics, that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance."
- Harold MacMillan
(Related: Experience, Politics, Criticism, Ignorance)