C. Everett Koop Quotes

Americans tend to go for it all. In international politics you can’t have it all. You have to compromise.

I got it: stay away from cocaine and heroin.

Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.

We have no lesson to teach Russia if we concurrently roll out the red carpet to Qatar, Saudi Arabia and China.

The domestic power structure - how power is exercised in the United States, for instance - greatly influences the structure of international institutions. So, for example, the Clinton administration was very influential in shaping the WTO treaty, and, because of the way the US domestic political system works, this meant that corporations could use the US government to wield a huge influence.

As a form of government, imperialism does not seek or require the consent of the governed. It is a pure form of tyranny. The American attempt to combine domestic democracy with such tyrannical control over foreigners is hopelessly contradictory and hypocritical. A country can be democratic or it can be imperialistic, but it cannot be both.

I don't like drugs. I think cocaine is a very bad, habit-forming bore. It's about the most boring drug ever invented.

The United States government does not negotiate with terrorists.

I myself smoke, but my wife asked me to speak today on the harmfulness of tobacco, so what can I do? If it's tobacco, then let it be tobacco.

In the Muslim world, much of it, they cannot conceive of something coming out of the United States that wouldn't be sanctioned by the government, because in their countries, everything is sanctioned by the government.

Foreign policy of a pluralistic democracy like the United States should be based on bipartisanship because bipartisanship is the means and the framework for formulating policies based on moderation and on the recognition of the complexity of the human condition. That has been the tradition since the days of Truman and Vandenberg all the way until recent times.

It is not the role of the United States to dictate change, but to enter into discussions with our friends.

Washington always has a high level of hypocrisy, right, but I think the level of hypocrisy that has come out of the United States Senate on both sides of the aisle is amazing.

Mexico has taken advantage of the United States. I don't blame the representatives and various presidents, et cetera, of Mexico. What I say is we shouldn't have allowed that to happen. It's not going to happen anymore.

Foreign policy is now a huge field. It isn't just people who are studying political science. There are so many aspects to it in terms of understanding hard science for people who are studying climate change, or people who are interested in health policy or food security, or people who care about education.

Everyone knows that the Zionist regime is a tool in the hands of the United States and British governments.

Particularly here in the United States there is a lack of comprehension about anything to do with the United Nations.

Cocaine isn't habit forming. I should know - I've been using it for years.

Their rhetoric is the same as always. The only difference is that the United States has granted them a whole series of concessions, and that the Cuban government has not changed at all. And that is part of the same thing I've always said, this isn't different, nothing has changed on the part of the Cuban government, absolutely nothing has changed on its part.

I believe that we do not share as many values with Russia yet as we do with the United States. On the other hand, we have a strong interest in Russia developing in a reasonable direction.

The United States has done some very good things in the world, and that does not change the fact that the World Court was quite correct in condemning the United States as an international terrorist state.

I would hope that Europe always has a privileged relationship with the United States. The alternatives are not attractive.

Smoking is a shocking thing - blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes, and noses, and having the same thing done to us.

A greater international role is important to lift some of the burden from the shoulders of the United States.

The importation and sale of marijuana is condemned and punished as a serious crime, but we accept as legitimate the manufacture and sale of an infinitely more addictive and deadly drug: the nicotine in cigarettes that cost the lives of 390,000 American citizens last year.