Harold Macmillan Quotes

38 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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
At home you always have to be a politician. When you're abroad you almost feel yourself a statesman.

Harold Macmillan
Up to 1931 there was no reason to suppose that social changes would not, or could not, follow the same evolutionary pattern which had resulted from the increased creation and distribution of wealth during the nineteenth century. Now, after 1931, many of us felt that the disease was more deep-rooted. It had become evident that the structure of capitalist society in its old form had broken down, not only in Britain but all over Europe and even in the United States. The whole system had to be reassessed. Perhaps it could not survive at all; it certainly could not survive without radical change. Something like a revolutionary situation had developed, not only at home but overseas.

Harold Macmillan
A Foreign Secretary...is always caught by a cruel dilemma—hovering between the cliché and the indiscretion.

Harold Macmillan
So what did they do? They solemnly asked Parliament, not to approve or disapprove, but to 'take note' of our decision. Perhaps some of the older ones among you will remember that popular song: 'She didn't say "Yes", she didn't say "No". She didn't say "stay", she didn't say "go". She wanted to climb, but dreaded to fall, she bided her time and clung to the wall.'

Harold Macmillan
On privatization:
First of all the Georgian silver goes, and then all that nice furniture that used to be in the saloon. Then the Canalettos go.

Harold Macmillan
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
To Rab Butler about a stack of papers:
Macmillan: What are those?
Butler: Policies.
Macmillan: Oh, I beg you, not policies. They come back to haunt you. Give them broad sunlit uplands, dear boy.

Harold Macmillan
There are three bodies no sensible man directly challenges: the Roman Catholic Church, the Brigade of Guards and the National Union of Mineworkers.

Harold Macmillan
I do not live among young people fairly widely.

Harold Macmillan
To Nikita Khrushchev showing his dissatisfaction by banging his shoe on the desk:
Perhaps we could have a translation, I could not quite follow.

Harold Macmillan
As an old man he only had nightmares about two things: the trenches in the Great War and what would have happened if the Cuban Missile Crisis had gone wrong.

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

Harold Macmillan
It breaks my heart to see (I can't interfere or do anything at my age) what is happening in our country today - this terrible strike of the best men in the world, who beat the Kaiser's army and beat Hitler's army, and never gave in. Pointless, endless. We can't afford that kind of thing. And then this growing division which the noble Lord who has just spoken mentioned, of a comparatively prosperous south, and an ailing north and midlands. That can't go on.

Harold Macmillan
The most striking of all the impressions I have formed since I left London a month ago is of the strength of this African national consciousness. In different places it may take different forms but it is happening everywhere. The wind of change is blowing through this continent. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact.

Harold Macmillan
What matters is that Mr. Macmillan has let Mr. Lloyd know that at the Foreign Office, in these troubled times, enough is enough.

Harold Macmillan
On the position of a Foreign Secretary:
Forever poised between a cliché and an indiscretion.

Harold Macmillan
We have seen the awakening of national consciousness in peoples who have for centuries lived in dependence upon some other power... The wind of change is blowing through the continent, and, whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact.

Harold Macmillan
He [Aneurin Bevan] enjoys prophesying the imminent fall of the capitalist system and is prepared to play a part, any part, in its burial, except that of mute.

Harold Macmillan
It has always seemed to me more artistic, when the curtain falls on the last performance, to accept the inevitable E finita la commedia. It is tempting, perhaps, but unrewarding to hang about the greenroom after final retirement from the stage.

Harold Macmillan
As Prime Minister sometimes the strain is awful, you have to resort to Jane Austen.

Harold Macmillan
I do not intend to live 'after my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff of younger spirits'.

Harold Macmillan
The sale of assets is common with individuals and states when they run into financial difficulties. First, all the Georgian silver goes, and then all that nice furniture that used to be in the saloon. Then the Canalettos go.

Harold Macmillan
The Whips want the safe men…I reminded Winston again that it took Hitler to make him PM and me an under-secretary. The Tory Party would do neither.

Harold Macmillan
When asked to identify the greatest challenge for a statesman:
Events, my dear boy, events.

Harold Macmillan
It is thinking about themselves that is really the curse of the younger generation—they appear to have no other subject which interests them at all.

Harold Macmillan
I have never found in a long experience of politics that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance.

Harold Macmillan