Harold MacMillan Quotes and Sayings - Page 1

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Politics,

“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

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