ethical foreign policy Quotes

America has never been an empire. We may be the only great power in history that had the chance, and refused - preferring greatness to power and justice to glory.

I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture and I'm going to make sure that we don't torture. Those are part and parcel an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world.

You actually cannot sell the idea of freedom, democracy, diversity, as if it were a brand attribute and not reality -- not at the same time as you're bombing people, you can't.

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make.

A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security.

Values-oriented foreign policy of the free world would be much better, supported by the self-awareness of being on the right side of history.

I believe that we shouldn't be supporting any form of aid towards countries that are killing people that are innocent.

Highfalutin moral principles are impossible guides to foreign policy. At worst, they reflect hypocrisy; at best, extreme naivete.

Foreign policy that is obviously guided by interests, but that is very much also committed to shared values, so we have a platform, democracy, freedom, respect of human rights that we would like to see respected all over the world and also, a peaceful world order.

Every nation makes decisions based on self-interest and defends them on the basis of morality.

Where defining foreign policy as 'ethical' went wrong was that it implied that all decisions would be exclusive in every respect of any dealings with unethical regimes.

We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties, and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others.