“In short, the end justifies the means.”

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

Americans hold that every problem has a solution; Chinese think that each solution is an admission ticket to a new set of problems.

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.

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.

It doesn’t matter what you expected, but you must accept what reality offers to you at the end.

Before texting your ex remind yourself of why it ended.

This love is a game and, darling, the truth is we’ll both lose in the end.

Every time I thought my world was coming to an end, a new world was being built right before my eyes.

I started at the very highest level so the upper end is something I know very well. I know it instinctively. But all the years I was designing, it frustrated me that I could reach so few women.

You tossed me out like dirt but out of dirt roses grew and I have more thorns than petals.

Time is a cruel thing. You can have all the time in the world with someone but when it ends it still won’t be enough.

Maybe there’s a world out there where you and I find each other and it doesn’t end in burning flames or broken hearts.