“Policy is the art of the possible, the science of the relative.”

To undertake a journey on a road never before traveled requires character and courage: character because the choice is not obvious; courage because the road will be lonely at first. And the statesman must then inspire his people to persist in the endeavor.

I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.

The Art of War articulates a doctrine less of territorial conquest than of psychological dominance; it was the way the North Vietnamese fought America.

It’s a pity both sides can’t lose (commenting on Iran-Iraq war, 1980 – 1988)

Intellectuals analyze the operations of international systems; statesmen build them.

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.

Since Peter the Great, Russia had been expanding at the rate of one Belgium per year.

It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a matter of what is perceived to be true.

The Soviet Union would never be bound by agreements, Deng warned; it understood only the language of countervailing force.

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it’s their fault.

The war is just when the intention that causes it to be undertaken is just. The will is therefore the principle element that must be considered, not the means, He who intends to kill the guilty sometimes faultlessly shed the blood of the innocents

The art of crisis management is to raise the stakes to where the adversary will not follow, but in a manner that avoids a tit for tat.

In short, the end justifies the means.

Postcolonial countries. All have sought to overcome the legacy of colonial.

Woe to the statesman whose arguments for entering a war are not as convincing at its end as they were at the beginning, Bismarck had cautioned.

Poor old Germany. Too big for Europe, too small for the world

Everything will be art and nothing will be art, because everything, as I believe, already is.

Art is more important than what you think of me.

As technology advances at an alarming pace, the place of drawing remains as valid as ever in the creation of art and architecture.

The art of living is the art of knowing how to believe lies.

Pop art is about liking things.

Thoroughness characterizes all successful men. Genius is the art of taking infinite pains. All great achievement has been characterized by extreme care, infinite painstaking, even to the minutest detail.

If you’re not trying to be real, you don’t have to get it right. That’s art.

Having once found the intensity of art, nothing else that can happen in life can ever again seem as important as the creative process.