A bluff taken seriously is more useful than a serious threat interpreted as a bluff.

Power is the great aphrodisiac.

I do not believe that Putin intends to leave office in a Cold War atmosphere with the United States.

To have striven so hard, to have molded a public personality out of so amorphous an identity, to have sustained that superhuman effort only to end with every weakness disclosed and every error compounding the downfall--that was a fate of biblical proportions. Evidently the Deity would not tolerate the presumption that all can be manipulated; an object lesson of the limits of human presumption was necessary.

In relations with many domestically weak countries, a radio transmitter can be a more effective form of pressure than a squadron B-52s.

Whatever must happen ultimately should happen immediately.

I've often said that the desire to lecture China on how it should behave in the world is wrong. China was around for thousands of years even before America existed. It could even be that China's growing power will allow itself to be slowed down. But as long as this immense empire doesn't fall apart, it will become an important factor in global politics.