“Empires have no interest in operating within an international system; they aspire to be the international system.”

The reason that university politics is so vicious is because stakes are so small

The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.

Americans have a tendency to believe that when there’s a problem there must be a solution.

For Roosevelt, if a nation was unable or unwilling to act to defend its own interests, it could not expect others to respect them. Inevitably,

If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.

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.

Covert action should not be confused with missionary work.

For nations, history plays the role that character confers on human beings.

If Chinese exceptionalism represented the claims of a universal empire, Japanese exceptionalism sprang from the insecurities of an island nation borrowing heavily from its neighbor, but fearful of being dominated by it.

The issues are too important to be left for the voters.

A diamond is a chunk of coal that did well under pressure.

I want to thank you for stopping the applause. It is impossible for me to look humble for any period of time.

A more immediate issue concerns North Korea, to which Bismarck’s nineteenth-century aphorism surely applies: We live in a wondrous time, in which the strong is weak because of his scruples and the weak grows strong because of his audacity.

If history teaches anything it is that there can be no peace without equilibrium and no justice without restraint.

Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.

In the end, peace can be achieved only by hegemony or by balance of power.

Everybody knows how much I love Arsenal – I became a fan. And to be out here celebrating a goal against Tottenham, there’s not much else to say after thatLike I’ve said before, Once a Gooner, always a Gooner.

Sometimes in football you have to score goals.

Your goal is not to know every detail of the future. Your goal is to hold the hand of the One who does and never, ever let go.

Let our chief goal, O God, be your glory, and to enjoy You forever.

I can’t think of a striker in the world who has scored so many important goals, never mind a midfielder.

Messi makes the difference most of the time. In particular, he is always going forwards. He never passes the ball backwards or sideways. He has only one idea, to run towards the goal. So as a football fan, just enjoy the show.

Messi scores a goal and celebrates. Cristiano scores a goal and poses like he’s in a shampoo commercial.

I am Maradona, who makes goals, who makes mistakes. I can take it all, I have shoulders big enough to fight with everybody.