Harold MacMillan

“No man should ever lose sleep over public affairs.”

“There might be 1 finger on the trigger, but there will be 15 fingers on the safety catch.”

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

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

“It is the duty of Her Majesty's government neither to flap nor to falter.”

“Power? It's like a Dead Sea fruit. When you achieve it, there is nothing there.”

“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.”

“(A Foreign Secretary) is forever poised between the cliche and the indiscretion.”

“When the curtain falls, the best thing an actor can do is to go away.”

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

“Britain's most useful role is somewhere between bee and dinosaur.”

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

“I was a sort of son to Ike, and it was the other way round with Kennedy.”

“In long experience I find that a man who trusts nobody is apt to be the kind of man nobody trusts.”

“It's no use crying over spilt summits.”

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

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