Harold MacMillan Quotes

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

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

Most of our people have never had it so good.

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.

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

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

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

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.

I have learned that in all negotiations nothing matters except the will to reach agreement.

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.

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

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

After a long life I have come to the conclusion that when all the Establishment is united it is always wrong.

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.

We believe that unless we give opportunity to the strong and able, we shall never have the means to provide real protection for the weak and the old.

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

90% of what we did the Press didn't know about, and 90% of what they did know about they got wrong.

To be alive at all involves some risk.

Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.

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.

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

I have never found criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance.

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.

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

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