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Quotes from Dictatorships and Double Standards — Jeane Kirkpatrick

1926–2006 United States

← All quotes by Jeane Kirkpatrick

4 quotes

Decades, if not centuries are normally required for people to acquire the necessary disciplines and habits [for democracy]. In Britain, the road [to democratic government] took seven centuries to traverse.

Dictatorships and Double Standards (1979)

No idea holds greater sway in the minds of educated Americans that the belief that it is possible to democratize governments anytime and anywhere under any circumstances .

Dictatorships and Double Standards (1979)

The speed with which armies collapse, bureaucracies abdicate, and social structures dissolve once the autocrat is removed frequently surprises American Policy makers.

Dictatorships and Double Standards (1979)

Vietnam presumably taught us that the United States could not serve as the world’s policeman; it should also have taught us the dangers of trying to be the world’s midwife to democracy when the birth is scheduled to take place under conditions of guerrilla war.

Dictatorships and Double Standards (1979)

Attribution

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