Hans Morgenthau Quotes

Man is born to seek power, yet his actual condition makes him a slave to the power of others.

The statesman must think in terms of the national interest, conceived as power among other powers. The popular mind, unaware of the fine distinctions of the statesman's thinking, reasons more often than not in the simple moralistic and legalistic terms of absolute good and absolute evil.

Political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action. It is also aware of the ineluctable tension between the moral command and the requirements of successful political action. And it is unwilling to gloss over and obliterate that tension and thus to obfuscate both the moral and the political issue by making it appear as though the stark facts of politics were morally more satisfying than they actually are, and the moral law less exacting than it actually is.

Power positions do not yield to arguments, however rationally and morally valid, but only to superior power.

When we speak of power, we mean man's control over the minds and actions of other men. By political power we refer to the mutual relations of control among the holders of public authority and between the latter and the people at large.

Man is a political animal by nature; he is a scientist by chance or choice; he is a moralist because he is a man.

Propaganda replaces moral philosophy.

Man will not live without answers to his questions.

Throughout the nation's history, the national destiny of the United States has been understood in antimilitaristic, libertarian terms.