Jeane Kirkpatrick Quotes

Quotes about:

• A government is not legitimate merely because it exists.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Government, Political, Liberty

  Jeane J. Kirkpatrick (1988). “Political and moral dimensions”, p.435, Transaction Publishers

  49 Copy quote

• Words can destroy. What we call each other ultimately becomes what we think of each other, and it matters.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Healing, Thinking, Matter

  Jeane J. Kirkpatrick (1988). “National and international dimensions”, p.22, Transaction Publishers

  32 Copy quote

• I was a woman in a man's world. I was a Democrat in a Republican administration. I was an intellectual in a world of bureaucrats. I talked differently. This may have made me a bit like an ink blot.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Men, Intellectual, Ink

  42 Copy quote

• Democrats can't get elected unless things get worse-and things won't get worse unless they get elected.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Humorous, Political, Republican

  27 Copy quote

• For all their faults, right-wing authoritarian regimes more easily accept democratic reforms than left-wing totalitarian states.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  War, Wings, Faults

  13 Copy quote

• History is a better guide than good intentions.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Women, History, Good Intentions

  17 Copy quote

• I conclude that it is a fundamental mistake to think that salvation, justice, or virtue come through merely human institutions.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Mistake, Thinking, Umpires

  28 Copy quote

• Democracy not only requires equality but also an unshakable conviction in the value of each person, who is then equal. Cross cultural experience teaches us not simply that people have different beliefs, but that people seek meaning and understand themselves in some sense as members of a cosmos ruled by God.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  People, Democracy, Different

  11 Copy quote

• The absence of utopianism in the Constitution, law, and traditional political culture has been ... important in limiting expectations concerning what can be achieved by politics. The history of the last two centuries confirms what the framers of the Constitution understood: that the perfect is the enemy of the good, and the search for unalloyed virtue in public life leads to unalloyed terror.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Law, Two, Perfect

  15 Copy quote

• When Marxist dictators shoot their way into power in Central America, the Democrats don't blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies, they blame United States' policies of one hundred years ago, but then they always blame America first.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  War, Years, America

  "Kirkpatrick Hit Liberals for Blaming America First". www.washingtontimes.com. May 15, 2006.

  16 Copy quote

• What takes place in the Security Council more closely resembles a mugging than either a political debate or an effort at problem-solving.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Effort, Political, Problem

  "Cal Thomas: Mr. Trump, please pick John Bolton for State" by Cal Thomas, www.foxnews.com. December 1, 2016.

  18 Copy quote

• Americans need to face the truth about themselves, no matter how pleasant it is.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Needs, Matter, Faces

  "What's So Great About America". Book by Dinesh D'Souza. Chapter 6: "America the Beautiful", 2002.

  9 Copy quote

• Vietnam presumably taught us that the United States could not serve as the world's policeman; it should also have taught us the dangers of trying to be the world's midwife to democracy when the birth is scheduled to take place under conditions of guerrilla war.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Military, War, Taught Us

  "Quote for the Day II". The year 1979 quote, www.theatlantic.com. January 09, 2007.

  15 Copy quote

• Truth, which is important to a scholar, has to be concrete. And there is nothing more concrete than dealing with babies, burps and bottles, frogs and mud.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Baby, Important, Bottles

  20 Copy quote

• We have war when at least one of the parties to a conflict wants something more than it wants peace.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Military, War, Party

  11 Copy quote

• Mr. President, we've taken off our "Kick Me" sign.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Taken, President, Kicks

  9 Copy quote

• Democracy not only requires equality but also an unshakable conviction in the value of each person, who is then equal

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Equality, Democracy, Conviction

  11 Copy quote

• Tyranny and anarchy are alike incompatible with freedom, security, and the enjoyment of opportunity.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Opportunity, Helping Others, People

  Jeane J. Kirkpatrick (1988). “Political and moral dimensions”, p.86, Transaction Publishers

  11 Copy quote

• The speed with which armies collapse, bureaucracies abdicate, and social structures dissolve once the autocrat is removed frequently surprises American Policy makers.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Army, Surprise, Speed

  "Jeane Kirkpatrick". www.economist.com. December 19, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

• Look, I don't even agree with myself at times.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Looks, Agree

  8 Copy quote

• A doctrine of class war seemed to provide a solution to the problem of poverty to people who know nothing about how wealth is created

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  War, Idaho, Class

  8 Copy quote

• No idea holds greater sway in the minds of educated Americans that the belief that it is possible to democratize governments anytime and anywhere under any circumstances.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Government, Ideas, Mind

  "Jeane Kirkpatrick, Realist" by Timothy Noah, www.slate.com. December 08, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

• Power ... is not an end in itself, but is an instrument that must be used toward an end.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Power, Used, Ends

  Jeane J. Kirkpatrick (1988). “National and international dimensions”, p.394, Transaction Publishers

  14 Copy quote

• All of us confront limits of body, talent, temperament. But that is not all. We are, all of us, also constrained by our time, our place, our civilization.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Civilization, Body, Limits

  Jeane J. Kirkpatrick (1983). “The Reagan phenomenon, and other speeches on foreign policy”, Aei Pr

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• I think that Ronald Reagan wanted to hear other people's views, and he always listened carefully, and from time to time he changed his own mind about a position. And especially he took pains to listen carefully to foreign leaders with whom he was dealing.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Pain, Thinking, Views

  10 Copy quote

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