Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered.
No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.
Today it is infinitely easier to kill one million people than to control one million people.
I'm afraid that the United States is more isolated today than at any other time in my memory.
It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a matter of what is perceived to be true.
The Russian empire under czars and commissars has been hard to deal with for other countries.
So far the changes in the president in his second term have been mainly of a rhetorical nature.
I don't consider China a communist state, no. I know that sounds paradoxical, but it's my view.
Let's face it: The Jewish community is the most active political community in American society.
We cannot have that relationship if we only dictate or threaten and condemn those who disagree.
After all, we didn't bring democracy to Germany in 1945; Hitler destroyed democracy there first.
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that, if you bore people, they think it's their fault.
If you control the oil you control the country; if you control food, you control the population.
The potential for regional conflict in the absence of an internationally active America is real.
If we can deter the Soviet Union, if we can deter North Korea, why on earth can't we deter Iran?
You know who's messianic? Netanyahu, because he talks that way. And that's a very risky position.
If Iraq were to descend into chaos, the Europeans would feel the effects just as much as we would.
To resolve conflicts, excessive ambitions and one's own fears and aspirationis must be sacrificed.
What we in America call terrorists are really groups of people that reject the international system
The Europeans must finally understand the incredible shock triggered by the attacks of September 11.
I do not believe that Putin intends to leave office in a Cold War atmosphere with the United States.
Pakistan is both an ally in the war on terror and in some sense a battleground of the war on terror.
I think there's nothing more dangerous than mislearning lessons of history, and we do it perpetually.
The Israelis have a lot of influence with Congress, and in some cases they are able to buy influence.
We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Without Ukraine, Russia's imperial aspirations are essentially nostalgia, but it's not a real policy.
The UN could help the Iraqi government get on its feet and help the United States withdraw a bit more.
Pakistan is both an ally in the war on terror, and in some sense, a battleground of the war on terror.
Because America is a democracy, public support for presidential foreign-policy decisions is essential.
America wants to work with friends, with allies, with people of good will, to make this a better world.
Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions.
It is frankly a mistake of amateurs to believe you can gain the upper hand in a diplomatic negotiation.
Initial reports are encouraging. In the end of the day, it's going to be deeds, not words, that matter.
We should seek to cooperate with Europe, not to divide Europe to a fictitious new and a fictitious old.
It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.
Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power, and is often, in point of fact, useless.
Neither the United States nor Israel has the capacity to impose a unilateral solution in the Middle East.
Hard power makes sense under some circumstances. But there's not a universal solution to global problems.
Henceforth the adequacy of any military establishment will be tested by its ability to preserve the peace.
The Chinese are really good at diplomacy - and even at making their interlocutors feel very uncomfortable.
The first 'world' war was in reality the last European war fought by globally significant European powers.
Look: I don't want to live with a nuclear Iran. I would like to make it uncomfortable for them to seek it.
The security link between us and Europe is very important for European security but also for our security.
A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security.
It is not often that nations learn from the past,even rarer that they draw the correct conclusions from it.
One thing I don't want around me is a military intellectual. I don't have to worry about you on that score.
But there is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and even less to the Sept. 11 attacks.
Over time even two armed blind men in a room can do enormous damage to each other, not to speak of the room.
We can't have an intelligent foreign policy unless we have an intelligent public, because we're a democracy.
I'm all in favour of grand important speeches, but the president then has to link his sermons to a strategy.