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.”

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

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

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

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

“Memorial services are the cocktail parties of the geriatric set.”

“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.”

“I have never found, in a long experience of politics, that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“He is forever poised between a cliche and an indiscretion.”

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

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

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

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