Dean Acheson Quotes

A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.

I learned from the example of my father that the manner in which one endures what must be endured is more important than the thing that must be endured.

The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time. The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.

Always remember that the future comes one day at a time.

Between 9 and 10 AM the American radio is concerned almost exclusively with love. It seems a little like ending breakfast with a stiff bourbon.

Negotiation in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.

I think Churchill is right, the only thing to be said for democracy is that there is nothing else that's any better, and therefore he used to say, Tyranny tempered by assassination, but lots of assassination. People say, If the Congress were more representative of the people it would be better. I say the Congress is too damn representative. It's just as stupid as the people are; just as uneducated, just as dumb, just as selfish.

The great corrupter of public men is the ego - corrupter because distracter. Wealth, sensuality, power cannot hold a candle to it. Looking in the mirror distracts one's attention from the problem.

Great Britain has lost an Empire and has not yet found a role.

Like apples in a barrel infected by one rotten one, the corruption of Greece would infect Iran and all to the east. It would also carry infection to Africa through Asia Minor and Egypt, and to Europe through Italy and France, already threatened by the strongest domestic Communist parties in Western Europe. The Soviet Union was playing one of the greatest gambles in history at minimal cost. It did not need to will all the possibilities. Even one or two offered immense gains. We and we alone were in a position to break up the play.

I have a curious and apprehensive feeling as I watch JFK that he is sort of an Indian snake charmer.

I have almost invariably found that charm is used as a substitute for intelligence in persons of both sexes. Thus, I have always been and will remain wary of it.

The limitations imposed by democratic political practices makes it difficult to conduct our foreign affairs in the national interest.

You can't argue with a river, it isgoing to flow.You can dam it up?put it to useful purposes?deflect it, but you can't argue with it.

No people in history have ever survived who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.

The test for aid to poor nations is therefore whether it makes them capable of being productive. If it fails to do so, it is likely to make them even poorer in the - not so very - long run.

Charm never made a rooster.

Vietnam was worse than immoral - it was a mistake.

With a nation, as with a boxer, one of the greatest assurances of safety is to add reach to power.

Great Britain has lost an Empire and not yet found a role. The attempt to playa separate power rolethat is, a role apart from Europe, based on a special relationship with the United States, on being the head of the Commonwealthis about to be played out. Her Majesty's Government is now attempting, wisely in my opinion, to re-enter Europe.

The trouble with a free market economy is that it requires so many policemen to make it work.

Brains are no substitute for judgement.

How could the USA champion individual freedom in the world generally while denying it to an important minority in its own country.

I doubt very much if a man whose main literary interests were in works by Mr. Zane Grey, admirable as they may be, is particularly equipped to be the chief executive of this country, particularly where Indian Affairs are concerned.

The future comes one day at a time [so don't fear and try to solve all the worries and problems of the future today].

The greatest mistake I made was not to die in office.

Greatness is a quality of character and is not the result of circumstances.

If we learn the art of yielding what must be yielded to the changing present, we can save the best of the past.

Controversial proposals, once accepted, soon become hallowed.

Time spent in the advertising business seems to create a permanent deformity like the Chinese habit of foot-binding.

We have actively sought and are actively seeking to make the United Nations an effective instrument of international cooperation.

Washington is like a self-sealing tank on a military aircraft. When a bullet passes through, it closes up.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

No man comes out of his own memorandum of conversation looking second best.

To leave positions of great responsibility and authority is to die a little, but the time comes when that must be faced.

I will undoubtedly have to seek what is happily known as gainful employment, which I am glad to say does not describe holding public office.

The defensive perimeter [of the United States in East Asia] runs along the Aleutians to Japan and then goes to the Ryukyus.

The Iraqi is really not whacky toady, perhaps, even tacky. When they gave him the word, he gave us the bird and joined with the Arabs, by cracky!

The most important aspect of the relationship between the president and the secretary of state is that they both understand who is president.

[President Truman] was free of the greatest vice in a leader, his ego never came between him and his job.

Americans assume Canada to be bestowed as a right and accept this bounty, as they do air, without thought or appreciation.