Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
438
AUTHOR:
Harold Macmillan (1894–1986)
QUOTATION:
A Foreign Secretary—and this applies also to a prospective Foreign Secretary—is always faced with this cruel dilemma. Nothing he can say can do very much good, and almost anything he may say may do a great deal of harm. Anything he says that is not obvious is dangerous; whatever is not trite is risky. He is forever poised between the cliché and the indiscretion.
ATTRIBUTION:
HAROLD MACMILLAN, secretary of state for foreign affairs, remarks in the House of Commons, July 27, 1955.—Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), House of Commons Official Report, vol. 544, col. 1301.
