Quotes Library

August 5, 2025

[On being prime minister] Sometimes the strain is awful, you have to resort to Jane Austen.

Harold Macmillan (1894–1986), British Conservative politician, prime minister, in the Butler Papers; Peter Hennessy The Hidden Wiring (1995), Jay p.245

How well do you deal with strain? Is that the best you can do?

Better Austen, than alcohol, affairs, or alternative strategies for relieving the strain. Besides, in every Austen novel, after great turmoil, things turn out right in the end.

Politics & Politicians

More Quotes

September 11, 2025
September 11, 2025
Democracy
People who want to understand democracy should spend less time in the library with Aristotle and more time on buses and in the subway.
November 29, 2025
November 29, 2025
Freedom & Justice
Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.
August 3, 2025
August 3, 2025
Human Nature
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.
123456…124
Page 4 of 124