Harold Nicolson Quotations

The great secret of a successful marriage is to treat all disasters as incidents and none of the incidents as disasters.

We are all inclined to judge ourselves by our ideals; others, by their acts.

The Irish do not want anyone to wish them well; they want everyone to wish their enemies ill.

The gift of broadcasting is, without question, the lowest human capacity to which any man could attain.

When I look back upon the more than sixty years that I have spent on this entrancing earth, and when I am asked which of all the changes that I have witnessed appears to me to be the most significant, I am inclined to answer that it is the loss of a

She proceeds to dip here little fountain-pen filler into pots of oily venom and to squirt this mixture at all her friends.

Considering that his hair is like that of a gollywog and his clothes noticeable the other end of Trafalgar Square, this is an odd assertion.

Few things are more agreeable than the spectacle of a man who loses his temper; we should be grateful to such people for providing us with moments of often unsullied delight.

Only one person in 1000 is a bore, and HE is interesting because he is one person in 1000.

Intellectuals incline to be individualists, or even independents, are not team conscious and tend to regard obedience as a surrender of personality.

We were preparing not Peace only, but Eternal Peace. There was about us the halo of some divine mission. We were bent on doing great, permanent noble things.

Every schoolmaster after the age of forty-nine, is inclined to flatulence is apt to swallow frequently and to puff

The worst thing, I fear, about being no longer young is that one is no longer young.

Berlin stimulates like arsenic.

Coaches should realize that the only way to conquer drudgery is by getting through it as efficiently as they can. A dull job slackly done becomes twice as dull, whereas a dull job performed as efficiently as possible becomes half as dull. Effort appears to be the main art of living.

To be a good diarist, one must have a snouty, sneaky mind.

These, then, are the qualities of my ideal diplomatist. Truth, accuracy, calm, patience, good temper, modesty and loyalty. They are also the qualities of an ideal diplomacy. But, the reader may object, you have forgotten intelligence, knowledge, discernment, prudence, hospitality, charm, industry, courage and even tact. I have not forgotten them. I have taken them for granted.