12 quotes
Political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action. It is also aware of the ineluctable tension between the moral command and the requirements of successful political action.
Politics Among Nations (1948)
The struggle for power is universal in time and space and is an undeniable fact of experience.
Politics Among Nations (1948)
Political realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature.
Politics Among Nations (1948)
Political power is a psychological relation between those who exercise it and those over whom it is exercised.
Politics Among Nations (1948)
Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe.
Politics Among Nations (1948)
Realism maintains that universal moral principles cannot be applied to the actions of states in their abstract universal formulation, but that they must be filtered through the concrete circumstances of time and place.
Politics Among Nations (1948)
Throughout the nation's history, the national destiny of the United States has been understood in antimilitaristic, libertarian terms.
Politics Among Nations (1948)
Intellectually, the political realist maintains the autonomy of the political sphere, as the economist, the lawyer, the moralist maintain theirs.
All nations are tempted — and few have been able to resist the power for long — to clothe their own aspirations and action in the moral purposes of the universe.
Politics Among Nations (1948)
The political realist is not unaware of the existence and relevance of standards of thought other than political ones. As political realist, he cannot but subordinate these other standards to those of politics.
Politics Among Nations (1948)
When we speak of power, we mean man's control over the minds and actions of other men. By political power we refer to the mutual relations of control among the holders of public authority and between the latter and the people at large.
Politics Among Nations (1948)
Influence can persuade, but power can compel.
Disputed