Hans Morgenthau Quotes

• 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.

  Hans Morgenthau

  Simple, Thinking, Evil

  Hans Morgenthau (1955). “Politics Among Nations”

  45 Copy quote

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

  Hans Morgenthau

  Power, Men, Slave

  53 Copy quote

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

  Hans Morgenthau

  Yield, Argument, Position

  Hans Joachim Morgenthau, Kenneth W. Thompson (1977). “A Tribute to Hans Morgenthau: truth and tragedy : with an intellectual autobiography by Hans J. Morgenthau”, New Republic Books

  40 Copy quote

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

  Hans Morgenthau

  Animal, Men, Choices

  29 Copy quote

• 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.

  Hans Morgenthau

  Mean, Men, People

  Hans Morgenthau (1955). “Politics Among Nations”

  34 Copy quote

• 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.

  Hans Morgenthau

  Successful, Law, Issues

  Hans Joachim Morgenthau (1993). “Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace”, McGraw-Hill Humanities Social

  41 Copy quote

• Propaganda replaces moral philosophy.

  Hans Morgenthau

  Philosophy, Tyrants, Moral

  16 Copy quote

• Man will not live without answers to his questions.

  Hans Morgenthau

  Men, Answers

  14 Copy quote

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

  Hans Morgenthau

  Destiny, United States, Libertarian

  Hans Morgenthau (1955). “Politics Among Nations”

  12 Copy quote

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