Richard B. Russell Jr. Quotes

If a man is going to be an American at all let him be so without any qualifying adjectives, and if he is going to be something else, let him drop the word American from his personal description.

If the Third World War is fought with nuclear weapons, the fourth will be fought with bows and arrows.

And we call ourselves the human race.

I propose the immediate launching of a nuclear strike on the United States. The Cuban people are prepared to sacrifice themselves for the cause of the destruction of imperialism and the victory of world revolution.

From 1861, the Confederacy had the task of demonizing its foe as debased, abnormal, and vile. Southerners had to make themselves feel viscerally superior, and to convince themselves that their very existence depended on the formation of a separate country, free of Yankees. Confederates had to shield themselves from the odious charge of treason by fighting to preserve a core American identity that nineteenth-century northerners had “corrupted”.

America has an identity crisis. This is a relatively new country compared to the rest of the world, yet it's the bully that fronts to know war and democracy like none other, therefore leading the global arbitration on both fronts.

We can have no '50-50' allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.

I'm obviously not an advocate of Christian America or a simplistic view of America as 'a city on a hill.'

We thought that whatever we wanted to do was right and good, simply because we were Americans, and we would succeed at it because we were Americans.

There's intense national feeling in America that could be called patriotism.

I do not know how the Third World War will be fought, but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth—rocks!

Anti-Americanism has been around as long as there has been an America.

Every thinking person fears nuclear war, and every technological nation plans for it.

Generally speaking, they [Americans] are not a people we should be proud to acknowledge as our relations.

I was haunted by the constant awareness that I might be required to calculate and decide in an instant of time whether some kind of nuclear action might be required in response to a real or imagined or mistaken attack perceived to be under way against my country.

The nuclear threat is a direct product of the cult of force that has dominated the world for centuries.

Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know America is better than every other country.

The Cold War is over. The world has become much more complicated.

We do not believe that a nuclear war should be fought and we do not believe that a nuclear war can be won.

The lesson of history is when a war starts every nation will ultimately use whatever weapon it has available. ... Therefore, we must expect that if another war — a serious war — breaks out, we will use nuclear energy in some form.

Nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary a choice of either a humiliating defeat or a nuclear war.

… this whole Near East problem is not just an Arab-Israeli dispute but a problem of the influence of the West as opposed to that of the Soviet. We want no wars, but we do not want a Sovietized world.

America must be kept American

A scientist belongs to the world in times of peace but to his country in times of war.

Most Americans are exceptionalists; we think we live outside of history.