George F. Kennan Quotes

Quotes about:

• It is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.

  George F. Kennan

  Russia, Usa, America

  "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," Foreign Affairs, July 1947

  103 Copy quote

• Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.

  George F. Kennan

  Military, Ocean, Government

  Foreword to 'The Pathology of Power' by Norman Cousins in 1987. "At a Century's Ending: Reflections 1982-1995". Book by George F. Kennan, p. 118, 1996.

  73 Copy quote

• The United States cannot reshape other countries in its own image and that, with a few exceptions, its efforts to police the world are neither in its interests nor within the scope of its resources. This whole tendency to see ourselves as the center of political enlightenment and as teachers to a great part of the rest of the world strikes me as unthought-through, vainglorious and undesirable.

  George F. Kennan

  Country, Teacher, America

  73 Copy quote

• We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.

  George F. Kennan

  Rights, Should, Standards

  "PPS No. 23". Memo by George Kennan, en.wikisource.org. February 28, 1948.

  72 Copy quote

• World communism is like [a] malignant parasite which feeds on diseased tissue

  George F. Kennan

  Tissues, World, Communism

  42 Copy quote

• The jealous and intolerant eye of the Kremlin can distinguish, in the end, only vassals and enemies, and the neighbors of Russia, if they do not wish to be one, must reconcile themselves to being the other.

  George F. Kennan

  Jealous, Eye, Russia

  George F. Kennan (2014). “The Kennan Diaries”, p.214, W. W. Norton & Company

  11 Copy quote

• Heroism is endurance for one moment more.

  George F. Kennan

  Hero, Marine, Endurance

  62 Copy quote

• The best thing we can do if we want the Russians to let us be Americans is to let the Russians be Russian.

  George F. Kennan

  Eyebrows, Want, Best Things

  "U.S.-Soviet Relations, A History" by John Corry, www.nytimes.com. April 17, 1984.

  7 Copy quote

• Anyone who has ever studied the history of American diplomacy, especially military diplomacy, knows that you might start in a war with certain things on your mind as a purpose of what you are doing, but in the end, you found yourself fighting for entirely different things that you had never thought of before. In other words, war has a momentum of its own and it carries you away from all thoughtful intentions when you get into it. Today, if we went into Iraq, like the president would like us to do, you know where you begin. You never know where you are going to end.

  George F. Kennan

  Military, War, Fighting

  "George Kennan Speaks Out About Iraq" by Albert Eisele, historynewsnetwork.org. August 08, 2005.

  42 Copy quote

• The nuclear bomb is the most useless weapon ever invented. It can be employed to no rational purpose. It is not even an effective defense against itself.

  George F. Kennan

  Defense, Nuclear, Purpose

  36 Copy quote

• Russia, Russia - unwashed, backward, appealing Russia, so ashamed of your own backwardness, so orientally determined to conceal it from us by clever deceit.

  George F. Kennan

  Clever, Russia, Deceit

  "George Kennan and the Dilemmas of US Foreign Policy". Book by David Allan Mayers, p. 30, 1988.

  9 Copy quote

• The United States should not jump around like an elephant frightened by a mouse.

  George F. Kennan

  Elephants, United States, Should

  26 Copy quote

• A foreign policy aimed at the achievement of total security is the one thing I can think of that is entirely capable of bringing this country to a point where it will have no security at all.

  George F. Kennan

  Country, Thinking, Achievement

  "The Illusion of Total Security". Radcliffe Commencement Address on June 16, 1954. The Atlantic Monthly, No.194, August 1954.

  13 Copy quote

• War is a highly overrated tool of foreign policy.

  George F. Kennan

  War, Tools, Foreign Policy

  23 Copy quote

• It is an undeniable privilege of every man to prove himself right in the thesis that the world is his enemy; for if he reiterates it frequently enough and makes it the background of his conduct he is bound eventually to be right.

  George F. Kennan

  Men, Enemy, Privilege

  George F. Kennan (2012). “American Diplomacy: Sixtieth-Anniversary Expanded Edition”, p.118, University of Chicago Press

  7 Copy quote

• It is obviously easier, for the short run, to draw cheap labor from adjacent pools of poverty...than to find it among one's own people. And to the millions of such prospective immigrants from poverty to prosperity, there is, rightly or wrongly, no place that looks more attractive than the United States. Given its head, and subject to no restrictions, this pressure will find its termination only when the levels of overpopulation and poverty in the United States are equal to those of the countries from which these people are now so anxious to escape.

  George F. Kennan

  Running, Country, People

  32 Copy quote

• The very concept of history implies the scholar and the reader. Without a generation of civilized people to study history, to preserve its records, to absorb its lessons and relate them to its own problems, history, too, would lose its meaning.

  George F. Kennan

  People, Generations, Records

  "Putting History at Risk". www.nytimes.com. May 27, 1984.

  53 Copy quote

• The Russian leaders are keen judges of human psychology, and as such they are highly conscious that loss of temper and of self-control is never a source of strength in political affairs.

  George F. Kennan

  Loss, Self, Judging

  23 Copy quote

• The truth is sometimes a poor competitor in the market place of ideas – complicated, unsatisfying, full of dilemmas, always vulnerable to misinterpretation and abuse.

  George F. Kennan

  Ideas, Abuse, Atheism

  "American Diplomacy". Book by George F. Kennan, 1951.

  12 Copy quote

• Instruments of coercion, once created, have a tendency to find their own natural masters.

  George F. Kennan

  Coercion, Natural, Masters

  George F. Kennan (2013). “Encounter with Kennan: The Great Debate”, p.208, Routledge

  28 Copy quote

• Public opinion, or what passes for public opinion, is not invariably a moderating force in the jungle of politics.

  George F. Kennan

  Public Opinion, Opinion, Force

  George F. Kennan (2012). “American Diplomacy: Sixtieth-Anniversary Expanded Edition”, p.66, University of Chicago Press

  21 Copy quote

• There will be no room, here, for the smug myopia which views American civilization as the final solution to all world problems; which recommends our institutions for universal adoption and turns away with contempt from the serious study of the institutions of peoples whose civilizations may seem to us to be materially less advanced.

  George F. Kennan

  Civilization, Views, Adoption

  "Kennan and the Art of Foreign Policy". Book by Anders Stephanson, p. 160, 1989.

  22 Copy quote

• Popular revolt against a ruthless, experienced modern dictatorship, which enjoys a monopoly over weapons and communications, ... is simply not a possibility in the modern age.

  George F. Kennan

  Communication, America, Age

  25 Copy quote

• There is more respect to be won in the opinion of this world by a resolute and courageous liquidation of unsound positions than by the most stubborn pursuit of extravagant or unpromising objectives.

  George F. Kennan

  Stubborn, World, Opinion

  "The Vietnam War: An Intimate History". Book by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns, September 5, 2017.

  27 Copy quote

• The best an American can look forward to is the lonely pleasure of one who stands at long last on a chilly and inhospitable mountaintop where few have been before, where few can follow and where few will consent to believe he has been.

  George F. Kennan

  Lonely, Believe, Long

  GEORGE F. KENNAN (1967). “MEMOIRS 1925-1950”

  17 Copy quote

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