One thing about bureaucrats is that they never swallow their young. Leave them alone and you'll find them increasing every year.
MENZIES, SIR ROBERT
A man may be a tough, concentrated, successful moneymaker and never contribute to his country anything more than a horrible example. A manager may be tough and practical, squeezing out, while the going is good, the last ounce of profit and dividend, and may leave behind him an exhausted industry and a legacy of industrial hatred. A tough manager may never look outside his own factory walls or be conscious of his partnership in a wider world. I often wonder what strange cud such men sit chewing when their working days are over, and the accumulating riches of the mind have eluded them.
MENZIES, SIR ROBERT
Never take any notice of anonymous letters, unless you get a few thousand on the same subject.
MENZIES, SIR ROBERT
Men of genius are not to be analysed by commonplace rules. The rest of us who have been or are leaders, more commonplace in our quality, will do well to remember two things. One is never to forget posterity when devising a policy. The other is never to think of posterity when making a speech.
MENZIES, SIR ROBERT
It is a simple but sometimes forgotten truth that the greatest enemy to present joy and high hopes is the cultivation of retrospective bitterness.
MENZIES, SIR ROBERT – referring to Queen Elizabeth II
I did but see her passing by and yet I love her till I die.
MENZIES, SIR ROBERT – The Forgotten People Speech, 22 May 1942
Thinking ahead, what really happens to us will depend on how many people we have who are of the great and sober and dynamic middle-class – the strivers, the planners, the ambitious ones.
MENZIES, SIR ROBERT – The Wit of Sir Robert Menzies
I'll bet each of these conflicting allegations about me comes from an 'unimpeachable source.'
MENZIES, SIR ROBERT
My headmaster chastised me with a diabolical instrument a leather strap tacked to a piece of wood but he taught me with such villainous success that I am now Prime Minister.
MENZIES, SIR ROBERT – The Forgotten People Speech, 22 May 1942
The great vice of democracy is that for a generation we have been busy getting ourselves on to the list of beneficiaries and removing ourselves from the list of contributors, as if somewhere there was somebody else's effort on which we could thrive.