All George F. Kennan Quotes
- ...there is an optimal balance, depending on the manner of man's life, between the density of human population and the tolerances of nature. This balance,… American
- This is a big world. Billions - rapidly increasing billions - of people live outside our borders. Obviously, a great number of them, being much… Big
- It is obviously easier, for the short run, to draw cheap labor from adjacent pools of poverty...than to find it among one's own people. And… Adjacent
- Actually, the inability of any society to resist immigration, the inability to find other solutions to the problem of employment at the lower, more physical,… Any
- Popular revolt against a ruthless, experienced modern dictatorship, which enjoys a monopoly over weapons and communications, ... is simply not a possibility in the modern… Age
- It is an undeniable privilege of every man to prove himself right in the thesis that the world is his enemy; for if he reiterates… Background
- Anyone who has ever studied the history of American diplomacy, especially military diplomacy, knows that you might start in a war with certain things on… All
- The jealous and intolerant eye of the Kremlin can distinguish, in the end, only vassals and enemies, and the neighbors of Russia, if they do… Distinguish
- It is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and… Any
- There is more respect to be won in the opinion of this world by a resolute and courageous liquidation of unsound positions than by the… Courageous
- War is a highly overrated tool of foreign policy. Foreign
- A foreign policy aimed at the achievement of total security is the one thing I can think of that is entirely capable of bringing this… Achievement
- We should not lose ourselves in vainglorious sohemes for changing human nature all over the planet. Rather, we should learn to view ourselves with a… All
- The nuclear bomb is the most useless weapon ever invented. It can be employed to no rational purpose. It is not even an effective defense… Bomb
- A political society does not live to conduct foreign policy; it would be more correct to say that it conducts foreign policy in order to… Conduct
- Bearing all this in mind, we see that there is no Russian national understanding which would permit the early establishment in Russia of anything resembling… All
- Perfect discipline requires recognition of infallibility. Infallibility requires the observance of discipline. Discipline
- Forms of government are forged mainly in the fire of practice, not in the vacuum of theory. They respond to national character and to national… Character
- Above all, it behooves us to repress, and if possible to extinguish once and for all, our inveterate tendency to judge others by the extent… All
- The Russian leaders are keen judges of human psychology, and as such they are highly conscious that loss of temper and of self-control is never… Affair
- The best an American can look forward to is the lonely pleasure of one who stands at long last on a chilly and inhospitable mountaintop… American
- The very concept of history implies the scholar and the reader. Without a generation of civilized people to study history, to preserve its records, to… Absorb
- The United States cannot reshape other countries in its own image and that, with a few exceptions, its efforts to police the world are neither… America
- Russia, Russia-unwashed, backward, appealing Russia, so ashamed of your own backwardness, so orientally determined to conceal it from us by clever deceit. Appealing
- The best thing we can do if we want the Russians to let us be Americans is to let the Russians be Russian. American