Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Any fact that needs to be disclosed should be put out now or as quickly as possible, because otherwise the bleeding will not end.
If peace is equated simply with the absence of war, it can become abject pacifism that turns the world over to the most ruthless.
The American foreign policy trauma of the sixties and seventies was caused by applying valid principles to unsuitable conditions.
It is in the U.S. interest to engage Iran in serious negotiations - on both regional security and the nuclear challenge it poses.
The enemies you make by taking a decided stand generally have more respect for you than the friends you make by being on the fence
A Russia that gradually begins to gravitate toward the West will also be a Russia that ceases to disrupt the international system.
Accept everything about yourself - I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end - no apologies, no regrets.
The public life of every political figure is a continual struggle to rescue an element of choice from the pressure of circumstance.
America is stronger than any state probably since the Roman Empire. But we can't do what used to be done with that kind of strength.
Don't be too ambitious. Do the most important thing you can think of doing every year and then your career will take care of itself.
There are only two reasons to sit in the back row of an airplane: Either you have diarrhea, or you're anxious to meet people who do.
It is important to ask ourselves, as citizens, whether a world power can provide global leadership on the basis of fear and anxiety.
We cannot always assure the future of our friends; we have a better chance of assuring our future if we remember who our friends are.
The mullahs are part of the past in Iran, not its future. But change in Iran will come through engagement, not through confrontation.
Many of the scientists have believed that their contribution to ending the nuclear race is not to let any new weapons to be developed.
Most foreign policies that history has marked highly, in whatever country, have been originated by leaders who were opposed by experts.
In relations with many domestically weak countries, a radio transmitter can be a more effective form of pressure than a squadron B-52s.
I think if NATO haven't expanded, we would have a no-man's zone between the E.U. and NATO and Russia, and that would be very dangerous.
The scope of America's global hegemony is admittedly great, but its depth is shallow, limited by both domestic and external restraints.
Basically, I see Iran as an authentic nation-state. And that authentic identity gives it cohesion, which most of the Middle East lacks.
World War II and the ensuing Cold War compelled the United States to develop a sustained commitment to Western Europe and the Far East.
War triggers unforeseeable military dynamics and sets off massive political shocks, creating new problems as well as new opportunities.
Withdrawal of US troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public: The more US troops come home, the more will be demanded.
I would like to promote internal change in Iran - which is more likely if we don't fuse Iranian nationalism with Iranian fundamentalism.
We don't have a public that really understands the world anymore, and in the age of complexity, that problem becomes much more difficult.
The American formal position has been that we oppose violence by governments against their people. That principle should not be abandoned.
Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers.
There is an element of paranoia in this inclination to view any serious attempt at a compromised peace as somehow directed against Israel.
As in all things, it is terribly important to have a sense of priorities in what you do. And to make certain that priorities do not clash.
Sometimes in international politics, the better part of wisdom is to defer dangers rather than try to eliminate them altogether instantly.
It is one of history's ironies that Communism, advertised as a classless society, tended to breed a privileged class of feudal proportions.
It is conceivable that at some point a truly united and powerful European Union could become a global political rival to the United States.
The real distinction is between those who adapt their purposes to reality and those who seek to mold reality in the light of their purposes.
To revolutionaries the significant reality is the world which they are fighting to bring about, not the world they are fighting to overcome.
Saddam Hussein was an odious dictator, but he was also a very effective opponent of Iran. He was also a very effective opponent of al-Qaida.
We have to make a really cold judgement. Would the consequence of civil war be more devastating than the consequences of staying the course?.
The United States should not engage in tit-for-tat polemics directed at its most important allies. That is as demeaning as it is destructive.
No foreign policy - no matter how ingenious - has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none.
I believe that without Watergate we would have had an extraordinary period of success with a strong Nixon and a still vital Brezhnev in power.
There is an element of delusional obsession in the French political elite's preoccupation with the notion that France is still a global power.
AIPAC has consistently opposed a two-state solution, and a lot of members of Congress have been intimidated, and I don't think that's healthy.
If you control the food, you control a nation. If you control the energy, you control a region. If you control the money, you control the world.
I think that his [Obama's] task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period, when really a New World Order can be created.
I wouldn't say it's a split. It's a difference of emphasis. It does exist between, I would say, the State Department and the Defense Department.
We have three things in common: Irish wives, the ability to speak for 17 minutes without a verb, and the fact that we both speak with an accent.
I don't feel I was "born American," but my homeland was denied to me after the end of World War II and I craved something I could identify with.
With the decline of America's global preeminence, weaker countries will be more susceptible to the assertive influence of major regional powers.
Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.
The Gorbachev period is conceived as an abandonment of historic Russian positions. So this is the framework, in my view, in which Putin operates.
American politics are normally a result of pragmatic and not philosophical reasoning. No one in Washington has said we now prefer multilateralism.