Quotes by Political Scientists

She had privacy, and the privilege of walking up and down the same battlements as the sentries.
John Peter Nettl
Official Washington cannot tell the American people that the real purpose of its gargantuan military expenditures and belligerent interventions is to make the world safe for General Motors, General Electric, General Dynamics, and all the other generals.
Michael Parenti
The world became more aware that America-despite being the hope of many who have the personal drive and ambition to become part of the "American dream"-is beset by serious operational challenges: a massive and growing national debt, widening social inequality, a cornucopian culture that worships materialism, a financial system given to greedy speculation, and a polarized political system
Zbigniew Brzeziński
The ongoing changes in the distribution of global power and mounting global strife make it all the more imperative that America not retreat into an ignorant garrison-state mentality or wallow in self-righteous cultural hedonism
Zbigniew Brzeziński
I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.
Henry Kissinger
A conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if it does not lose.
Henry Kissinger
Trying to make the presidency work these days is like trying to sew buttons on a custard pie.
James David Barber
The final greatness of the presidency lies in the truth that it is not just an office of incredible power but a breeding ground of indestructible myth.
Clinton Rossiter
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people they think it's their fault.
Henry Kissinger
We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
Alexis de Tocqueville
The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.
Henry Kissinger
The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room each believing himself in mortal peril from the other whom he assumes to have perfect vision.
Henry Kissinger
Freedom works.
Jeane Kirkpatrick
No scientific theory achieves public acceptance until it has been thoroughly discredited.
Douglas Yates
The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.
Alexis de Tocqueville
No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.
Henry Kissinger
You can surmount the obstacles in your path if you are determined courageous and hard-working. Never be fainthearted. Be resolute but never bitter.... Permit no one to dissuade you from pursuing the goals you set for yourselves. Do not fear to pioneer to venture down new paths of endeavor.
Ralph J. Bunche
Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
Henry Kissinger
The illegal we do immediately the unconstitutional takes a little longer.
Henry Kissinger
In politics a straight line is the shortest distance to disaster.
John P. Roche
In politics a community of hatred is almost always the foundation of friendships.
Alexis de Tocqueville
Ultimately politics in a democracy reflects values much more than it shapes them.
Arnold A. Rogow
There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
Henry Kissinger
90% of the politicians give the other 10% a bad reputation.
Henry Kissinger
A nation is a body of people who have done great things together in the past and hope to do great things together in the future.
Frank Underhill
I do not stand on protocol. If you just call me Excellency it will be okay.
Henry Kissinger
The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform.
Alexis de Tocqueville
No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.
Henry Kissinger
You can surmount the obstacles in your path if you are determined courageous and hard-working. Never be fainthearted. Be resolute but never bitter.... Permit no one to dissuade you from pursuing the goals you set for yourselves. Do not fear to pioneer to venture down new paths of endeavor.
Ralph J. Bunche
The illegal we do immediately the unconstitutional takes a little longer.
Henry Kissinger
Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
Henry Kissinger
In politics a straight line is the shortest distance to disaster.
John P. Roche
In politics a community of hatred is almost always the foundation of friendships.
Alexis de Tocqueville
There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
Henry Kissinger
Ultimately politics in a democracy reflects values much more than it shapes them.
Arnold A. Rogow
90% of the politicians give the other 10% a bad reputation.
Henry Kissinger
A nation is a body of people who have done great things together in the past and hope to do great things together in the future.
Frank Underhill
The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room each believing himself in mortal peril from the other who he assumes to have perfect vision.
Henry Kissinger
I do not stand on protocol. If you just call me Excellency it will be okay.
Henry Kissinger
Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power and is often in point of fact useless. Just as a leader doesn't need intelligence a man in my job doesn't need too much of it either.
Henry Kissinger
The history of things that didn't happen has never been written.
Henry Kissinger
History is past politics and politics present history.
John Seeley
Tyranny and anarchy are alike incompatible with freedom security and the enjoyment of opportunity.
Jeane Kirkpatrick
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
Henry Kissinger
Now when I bore people at a party they think it's their fault.
Henry Kissinger
No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.
Henry Kissinger
The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.
Henry Kissinger
There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
Henry Kissinger
Life is to be entered upon with courage.
Alexis de Tocqueville
You can surmount the obstacles in your path if you are determined courageous and hardworking. ... Do not fear to pioneer to venture down new paths of endeavor.
Ralph J. Bunche
The healthy being craves an occasional wildness a jolt from normality a sharpening of the edge of appetite his own little festival of the Saturnalia a brief excursion from his way of life.
Robert Maclver
Chance does nothing that has not been prepared beforehand.
Alexis de Tocqueville
A well-established village in New England or the northern Middle-West could afford a town drunkard a town atheist and a few Democrats.
D. W. Brogan
The wolf reintroduction has gone so well that, somewhat ironically, the wolves are now threatened by their own success. Indeed, virtually all the conditions for strong public support that were evident in the early years of the program remain intact. The scientific and economic studies cited above support the original predictions of benefits, and agency officials remain committed to the policy. Yet some political actors remain hostile to the program. As NPS management assistant Sacklin said, "No amount of good science will stop a politician.
William R. Lowry
Politicians are like bad horsemen who are so preoccupied with staying in the saddle that they can’t bother about where they’re going.
Joseph Alois Schumpeter
A man who should undertake to inquire into everything for himself, could devote to each thing but little time and attention. His task would keep his mind in perpetual unrest, which would prevent him from penetrating to the depth of any truth, or of grappling his mind indissolubly to any conviction. His intellect would be at once independent and powerless. He must therefore make his choice from amongst the various objects of human belief, and he must adopt many opinions without discussion, in order to search the better into that smaller number which he sets apart for investigation. It is true that whoever receives an opinion on the word of another, does so far enslave his mind; but it is a salutary servitude which allows him to make a good use of freedom.A principle of authority must then always occur, under all circumstances, in some part or other of the moral and intellectual world. Its place is variable, but a place it necessarily has. The independence of individual minds may be greater, or it may be less: unbounded it cannot be. Thus the question is, not to know whether any intellectual authority exists in the ages of democracy, but simply where it resides and by what standard it is to be measured.
Alexis de Tocqueville
One person can make a difference, and every person should try.
Thomas E. Cronin
Human understanding more easily invents new things than new words.
Alexis de Tocqueville
History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.
Alexis de Tocqueville
The acquisition of knowledge from books provides an experience different from the Internet. Reading is relatively time-consuming; to ease the process, style is important. Because it is not possible to read all books on a given subject, much less the totality of books, or to organize easily everything one has read, learning from books places a premium on conceptual thinking - the ability to recognize comparable data and events and project patterns into the future. And style propels the reader into a relationship with the author, or with the subject matter, by fusing substance and aesthetics.
Henry Kissinger