Francesco Guicciardini Quotes

As long as I am president, we will maintain the greatest fighting force that the world has ever known.

That is the best Government, which best provides for war.

I couldn't become a policeman, so being county prosecutor is the next best thing.

We are the most powerful nation on earth. No external power, no terrorist organization, can defeat us. But we can defeat ourselves by getting caught in a quagmire.

The National Defense Act of 1916 left the United States with a General Staff of 19 officers, against Germany's 650.

In many parts of Italy the only revolutionary factor would be the full application of the rule of law.

This is an fascist society. We have to change its authoritarian structure …. And in the process we have to let a lot of people get away with crimes.

As piety cannot bee maintained without church ordinances and officers, nor justice without lawes & magistracy, no more can our safety & peace be preserved without military orders & officers

The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like law, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property.

There is a rank due to the United States among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure the peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.

America must always be the world's paramount military power

When you’ve got enough firepower, you win wars.

If our economy is strong, that means the military will be strong. If our economy is weak, that weakens our military.

What really matters for great powers is power—national economic and military strength—and that speaks loudly and clearly for itself.

No people in history have ever survived who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies

There never was a government without force.... A governement leaving it to a man to do his duty, or not, as he pleases, would be a new species of government, or rather no government at all.

Weakness is provocation.

The use of power to bring about radical social and political change in the 1860s carries important implications for the use of federal power to bring about change in matters of race, citizenship, and social welfare today. So long as this remains true—and there us no sign that these issues will go away any time soon.

It is hard to seriously suggest that from a national-security standpoint, 1,000 warheads are not enough to protect the United States. Such an arsenal is literally overkill, sufficient to destroy every major population center on the planet outside of our borders.

It takes a lot of punishment to be able to do anything to change the social order.

Somehow, the guys in power have to be reached by counter-power, or through a change in their hearts and minds, or change will not come.

Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy.

Knowing the horror that most women have of anything approaching irreverence, the Bible has been called out to play the part of a scarecrow on the rich fields of men’s monopolies…Men have had the management of all things human for six thousand years…Has the result been so eminently successful that we need dread a little change?

When there are too many policemen, there can be no liberty. When there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace. When there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice.

It is easier to fix roads and train police than to change the deep-rooted incentives and habits of those in power.