George F. Kennan Quotes

The Russians are like us, they look and act like us. They are fine people. They got along with our soldiers in Berlin very well. As far as I am concerned, they can have whatever they want just so they don't try to impose their system on others..

Let us mingle with other nations as one of them and not stand as one apart. Let us seek their friendship not their hate.

Turkey is a sovereign state, just like the U.S. We might go to different directions, in terms of our impressions and ideas, but we'll always remain friends.

If appeasing other nations means that we need to begin acting like them, you can count me out.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and China are more likely to view each other as competitors if not adversaries. But the die has not been cast. The best possible outcome is a new understanding that when they cannot cooperate, they will coexist and allow all countries in the Pacific to grow and thrive.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

Here we encounter two conflicting concepts with which we must come to grips in our time: the idea of national solidarity and the idea of international cooperation.

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.

No other people, as a whole, is entirely our enemy. No people at all … is entirely our friend.

The way to conquer the foreign artisan, is not to kill him, but to beat his work.

A policy that can be accurately, though perhaps not prudently, defined as one of “peaceful co-existence.”

We cannot expect to make everyone our friend, but we can try to make no one our enemy.

Nations like individuals do not always see alike or think alike, and international cooperation and progress are not helped by any nation assuming that it has a monopoly of wisdom or of virtue.

There is an appealing moral clarity in dividing the world into friend and foe. But in reality, progress in international affairs so often demands working with those with whom we do not see eye to eye.

The United States does not seek to impose our way of life on others.... We are not here to lecture. We are not here to tell others what to do.

We have affirmed the principle that a mature relationship between nations - as between individuals - can only flourish in an atmosphere of mutual respect.

We do not covet anything from any nation except their respect.

Like other countries in the world, China must uphold its own sovereignty, territorial integrity and development interests. At the same time, we are willing to properly handle differences and disagreements in state-to-state relations.

When human beings live together, conflict is inevitable. War is not.

To contrast national solidarity and international cooperation as two opposites seems foolish to me.

Our object should be peace within, and peace without. We want to live peacefully and maintain cordial friendly relations with our immediate neighbours and with the world at large.

Dialogue is the basis of Indian culture, and we don't want to make any enemies. Political and ideological adversaries, perhaps, but not enemies.

I think Americans should have a policy of love. That should be the foreign policy, love. Export Love.

We must keep on trying to solve problems, one by one, stage by stage, if not on the basis of confidence and cooperation, at least on that of mutual toleration and self-interest.

I believe the U.S. already understands and will understand more and more that only a strong Russia will respond to the genuine interests of the United States.