Once the bear’s hug has got you, it is apt to be for keeps.
Meaning of the quote
The quote means that once a problem or challenge grabs hold of you, it can be very difficult to get away from it. Just like a bear's strong hug, the problem can keep you trapped and unwilling to let go. Even if you try to escape, the problem may not release you easily. This suggests that it's important to be careful and prepared when facing challenges, because they can become hard to shake off once they take control.
More quotes from Harold MacMillan
It is the duty of Her Majesty’s government neither to flap nor to falter.
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If you don’t believe in God, all you have to believe in is decency. Decency is very good. Better decent than indecent. But I don’t think it’s enough.
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I was a sort of son to Ike, and it was the other way round with Kennedy.
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Marxism is like a classical building that followed the Renaissance; beautiful in its way, but incapable of growth.
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We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts.
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Once the bear’s hug has got you, it is apt to be for keeps.
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At home, you always have to be a politician; when you’re abroad, you almost feel yourself a statesman.
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Tradition does not mean that the living are dead, it means that the dead are living.
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It’s no use crying over spilt summits.
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Britain’s most useful role is somewhere between bee and dinosaur.
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As usual the Liberals offer a mixture of sound and original ideas. Unfortunately none of the sound ideas is original and none of the original ideas is sound.
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A man who trusts nobody is apt to be the kind of man nobody trusts.
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Memorial services are the cocktail parties of the geriatric set.
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(A Foreign Secretary) is forever poised between the cliche and the indiscretion.
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To be alive at all involves some risk.
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He is forever poised between a cliche and an indiscretion.
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If people want a sense of purpose they should get it from their archbishop. They should certainly not get it from their politicians.
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I read a great number of press reports and find comfort in the fact that they are nearly always conflicting.
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When the curtain falls, the best thing an actor can do is to go away.
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Power? It’s like a Dead Sea fruit. When you achieve it, there is nothing there.
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It has been said that there is no fool like an old fool, except a young fool. But the young fool has first to grow up to be an old fool to realize what a damn fool he was when he was a young fool.
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I was determined that no British government should be brought down by the action of two tarts.
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In long experience I find that a man who trusts nobody is apt to be the kind of man nobody trusts.
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No man succeeds without a good woman behind him. Wife or mother, if it is both, he is twice blessed indeed.
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I have never found, in a long experience of politics, that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance.
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There might be 1 finger on the trigger, but there will be 15 fingers on the safety catch.
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No man should ever lose sleep over public affairs.
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