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Quotes from Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department — Dean Acheson

1893–1971 United States

← All quotes by Dean Acheson

25 quotes

Acheson "never for one moment believed that the holding of office was a source of power – it was an obligation of service."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

"Force can overcome force, but a free society cannot long steel itself to dominate another people by sheer force."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

Not all the arts of diplomacy are learned solely in its practice. There are other exercise yards."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

Unfortunately, the hyperbole of the inaugural outran the provisions of the budget.

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

In the State Department, one never lacks for helpful suggestions.

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

In response, Acheson wrote to "tell a tale of large conceptions, great achievements...Its hero is the American people."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

"I was a frustrated schoolteacher, persisting against overwhelming evidence to the contrary in the belief that the human mind could be moved by facts and reason."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

President Truman used to say that budget figures revealed far more of proposed policy than speeches.

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

"The simple truth is that perseverance in good policies is the only avenue to success..."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

"… talk should precede, not follow, the issuance of orders."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

"The qualities which produce the dogged, unbeatable courage of the British, personified at the time by Winston Churchill, can appear in other settings as stubbornness bordering on stupidity."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

Plainly plenty of work was waiting to be done. The question was: would the State Department do it? I proposed to have a shot at finding out.

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

"The conclusion was...unpalatable to believers in American omnipotence, to whom every goal unattained is explicable only by incompetence or treason."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

I must plead guilty as any of escaping into immediate busywork to keep from the far harder task of peering into a dim future, which, of course, should be one of a diplomat's main duties.

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

"The test for aid to poor nations is therefore whether it makes them capable of being productive. If it fails to do so, it is likely to make them even poorer in the – not so very – long run."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

147, on the situation in Greece: "imminent collapse due to mounting guerrilla activity, supplied and directed from outside, economic chaos, and the Greek governmental inability to meet the crisis."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

"The best environment for diplomacy is found where mutual confidence between governments exists..."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

"… the situation was still too delicate for complete candor and the ultimate truth too unformed for statement."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

"The position of the United States had undergone a drastic change; the purpose and capabilities of the State Department had not."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

"If I have said nothing new tonight, it may well be because, in a family of nations as in families of individuals we should expect nothing more sensational than growth."

Present at the Creation: My Years in the State Department (1969)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Dean Acheson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.