Dean Acheson Quotes
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If we learn the art of yielding what must be yielded to the changing present, we can save the best of the past.
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No people in history have ever survived who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.
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'My constant appeal to American liberals was to face the long, hard years and not to distract us with the offer of short cuts and easy solutions begotten by good will out of the angels of man's better nature...The road to freedom and peace is a hard one.'
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The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.
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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.
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'There is perhaps nothing more important in the world today than the steadiness and consistency of the foreign policy of this Republic. Too much depends on the United States for us to indulge in the luxury of either undue pessimism or premature optimism.'
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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.
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Acheson's State Department 'comrades...played a vital role in setting the main lines of American foreign policy for many years to come and...they may feel in their hearts that it was nobly done.'
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Plainly plenty of work was waiting to be done. The question was: would the State Department do it? I proposed to have a shot at finding out.
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In response, Acheson wrote to 'tell a tale of large conceptions, great achievements...Its hero is the American people.'
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Acheson 'never for one moment believed that the holding of office was a source of power – it was an obligation of service.'
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a 'mixture of frustration and progress is the daily grind of foreign affairs.'
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In the State Department, one never lacks for helpful suggestions.
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Not all the arts of diplomacy are learned solely in its practice. There are other exercise yards.'
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The most important aspect of the relationship between the president and the secretary of state is that they both understand who is president.
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The heads of these divisions, like barons in a feudal system weakened at the top by mutual suspicion and jealousy between king and prince, were constantly at odds if not at war...For the most part the barons were knowledgeable people performing in a way the times had completely outdated, a fact of which they were quite unaware.
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The manner in which one endures what must be endured is more important than the thing that must be endured.
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The experiences of the years...have brought the country, particularly its young people, to a mood of depression, disillusion, and withdrawal from the effort to affect the world.
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147, on the situation in Greece: 'imminent collapse due to mounting guerrilla activity, supplied and directed from outside, economic chaos, and the Greek governmental inability to meet the crisis.'
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The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
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Negotiating in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.
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'… the situation was still too delicate for complete candor and the ultimate truth too unformed for statement.'
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Controversial proposals, once accepted, soon become hallowed.
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'… talk should precede, not follow, the issuance of orders.'