Skip to content

A democracy is peace-loving. It does not like to go to war. It is slow to rise to provocation. When it has once been provoked to the point where it must grasp the sword, it does not easily forgive its adversary for having produced this situation.

— George F. Kennan American Diplomacy (1951)

Another quote →

Topics

Democracy

More quotes by George F. Kennan

Reading, in contrast to sitting before the screen, is not a purely passive exercise.

For the love of God, for the love of your children and of the civilization to which you belong, cease this madness.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Vol. 37 (1981)

Although the Georgian nationalists do not like Stalin, they have every reason to be thankful to him.

World communism is like a malignant parasite which feeds only on diseased tissue.

I have never been any good at training children or dogs; that is why I am no good at training myself.

All George F. Kennan quotes →

You may also like

Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organization cannot live a full-blooded life.

Mikhail Gorbachev

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament!

Vladimir Lenin The State and Revolution (1917)

The law itself is the instrument of the ruling class; hence it is a logical impossibility for another class to assume power legally.

Oliver Cox Caste, Class, and Race: A Study in Social Dynamics (1948)

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of bourgeois stupidity.

Gustave Flaubert

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: George F. Kennan (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.