James Madison Quotes

The United States' administrations... must recognize that Iran is a big power. Having said that, we consider ourselves to be a human force and a cultural power and hence a friend of other nations. We have never sought to dominate others or to violate the rights of any other country.

We have to understand how we would act if some other country did to us what we do to them.

Conquest or superiority among other powers is not or ought not ever to be the object of republican systems.

Once nations get emotional, their relationships can change at bewildering speed.

What frustrates U.S. officials is that China sometimes seems more comfortable accommodating a strong United States, as it did in past decades, than partnering with an America that's less dominant.

I don't think there is any equivalency between the way the Russians conduct themselves and the way the United States does.

Harmonious relations with a superpower like America should be a priority, but it does not mean that one should start begging from it.

Just because the boogeyman of the Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore, it doesn't mean the world is living angelically.

Americans, for their part, must accept that a strong Europe will not be content to simply do America's bidding.

Relations between countries are built on values and interests and many other things, but at the end of the day, leaders are also only human beings.

I've never killed anybody... but I've definitely thought about it. But that's how we are. That's what happens when you put people together and put them into societies and cultures and have laws and the idea of justice.

Remember, the U.S. is a powerful state, it's not like Libya. If Libya wants to carry out terrorist acts, they hire Carlos the Jackal or something. The United States hires terrorist states.

All men, even the most surly are influenced by affection.

A unipolar world - one with only one power - makes sure that this space almost disappears. In a multipolar world this space multiplies. Therefore, there is nostalgia for a multipolar world.

In one sense, the Stanford prison study is more like a Greek drama than a traditional experiment, in that we have humanity, represented by a bunch of good people, pitted against an evil-producing situation. The question is, does the goodness of the people overwhelm the bad situation, or does the bad situation overwhelm the good people?

Does not all the world know that when in autumn the Bismarcks of the world, or they who are bigger than Bismarcks, meet at this or that delicious haunt of salubrity, the affairs of the world are then settled in little conclaves, with grater ease, rapidity, and certainty than in large parliaments or the dull chambers of public offices?

We've been in a period of relative stability and cooperation since the end of the Cold War among the world's major powers, but that may not always exist. And certainly one could even predict that there will be periods of hostility or tension ahead.

It is hard for us to admit we have a sin nature because we live in this system of checks and balances. If we get caught, we will be punished. But that doesn't make us good people; it only makes us subdued. Just think about the Congress and Senate and even the president. The genius of the American system is not freedom; the genius of the American system is checks and balances. Nobody gets all the power. Everybody is watching everybody else. It is as if the founding fathers knew, intrinsically, that the soul of man, unwatched, is perverse.

Pride is always a better lever against the nobility than reason.

There is no doubt that the United States now feels that they are the only superpower in the world and they can do what they like.

It's no good having, being with people you can dominate all the time. Or being with someone who can dominate you all the time. Because either one is boring.

From the weak nations' point of view, it is better if there are many powerful countries then if there are just a few. The more concentrated is power, the fewer opportunities there are to move. Space for change, space for freedom to implement change is then very narrow; very small.

If you study the behavior or the attitude of Syria, Iran, and U.S., you understand that these three countries can't come to terms with each other.

Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a Great War, the only way of remaining a Great Power is not to fight one.

To laugh is proper to man.