We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts.
Harold MacmillanRead
(A Foreign Secretary) is forever poised between the cliche and the indiscretion.
Interpretation
The role of a Foreign Secretary involves balancing between safe, clichéd statements and risky, potentially indiscreet ones.
Harold Macmillan's quote highlights the delicate position of a Foreign Secretary, emphasizing the challenge of navigating between the predictability of clichéd responses and the danger of making indiscreet remarks. This reflects the intricate balance required in diplomacy, where the choice of words can significantly impact international relations and negotiations.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about the challenges of political communication.
We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts.
History is apt to judge harshly those who sacrifice tomorrow for today.
Power? It's like a Dead Sea fruit. When you achieve it, there is nothing there.
The wind of change is blowing through the continent. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact.
You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too.
The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others.
Don't get mad. Don't get even. Just get elected, then get even.
This country has been strip-mined by rich and powerful interests. If you dont like what they're doing, don't just sit there. Vote them out.
Withdrawal of US troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public: The more US troops come home, the more will be demanded.
The working classes in every country only learn to fight in the course of their struggles...Social democracy...is only the advance guard of the proletariat, a small piece of the total working masses; blood from their blood, and flesh from their flesh. Social democracy seeks and finds the ways, and particular slogans, of the workers' struggle only in the course of the development of this struggle, and gains directions for the way forward through this struggle alone.
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