Harold Nicolson

“It is an illusion to believe that leaders gain in profundity while they gain in power.”

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

“The art of diplomacy is the art of telling plain truths without giving offence.”

“Although I am a gregarious person, I love solitude even more.”

“The English never remember, and the Irish never forget.”

“The advantage of being a pessimist is that you are either proved right or agreeably surprised.”

“Diaries are only personal if they are read by other people.”

“All centuries are dangerous. It is the business of the future to be dangerous.”

“Nobody who has not been in the interior of a family can say what the situation is.”

“The secret of a good life is to have the right loyalties and hold them in the right scale of values.”

“I have a profound sympathy for occupations that are dying. I am a Tory in that sense.”

“We are all inclined to believe what we do not understand.”

“No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.”

“Posterity is the grand inquisitor, and the only one.”