Quotes by Harold MacMillan

A man who trusts nobody is apt to be the kind of man nobody trusts.
– Harold MacMillan
A strange, a perverted creed that has a queer attraction both for the most primitive and for the most sophisticated societies.
– 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
At home, you always have to be a politician; when you're abroad, you almost feel yourself a statesman.
– Harold MacMillan
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
I read a great number of press reports and find comfort in the fact that they are nearly always conflicting.
– Harold MacMillan
I was a sort of son to Ike, and it was the other way round with Kennedy.
– Harold MacMillan
I was determined that no British government should be brought down by the action of two tarts.
– Harold MacMillan
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
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
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
It is the duty of Her Majesty's government neither to flap nor to falter.
– Harold MacMillan
It's no use crying over spilt summits.
– Harold MacMillan
Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.
– Harold MacMillan
Marxism is like a classical building that followed the Renaissance; beautiful in its way, but incapable of growth.
– Harold MacMillan
Memorial services are the cocktail parties of the geriatric set.
– Harold MacMillan
No man should ever lose sleep over public affairs.
– Harold MacMillan
Once the bear's hug has got you, it is apt to be for keeps.
– Harold MacMillan
Power? It's like a Dead Sea fruit. When you achieve it, there is nothing there.
– Harold MacMillan
Sixty-three years ago the unemployment figure was 29 percent. Last November it was 28 percent. A rather sad end to one's life.
– Harold MacMillan
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
There might be 1 finger on the trigger, but there will be 15 fingers on the safety catch.
– Harold MacMillan
To be alive at all involves some risk.
– Harold MacMillan
Tradition does not mean that the living are dead, it means that the dead are living.
– Harold MacMillan
We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts.
– Harold MacMillan
When the curtain falls, the best thing an actor can do is to go away.
– Harold MacMillan
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
I have never found, in a long experience of politics, that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance.
– Harold MacMillan