What we in America call terrorists are really groups of people that reject the international system

To revolutionaries the significant reality is the world which they are fighting to bring about, not the world they are fighting to overcome.

To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal

Americans believe that you can alter people by conversion, and that everybody in the world is a potential American. The Chinese also believe that their values are universal, but they do not believe that you can convert to becoming a Chinese unless you are born into it.

Tutelage is a comfortable relationship for the senior partner, but it is demoralizing in the long run. It breeds illusions of omniscience on one side and attitudes of impotent irresponsibility on the other.

Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative.

The test of policy is how it ends, not how it begins. Foreign policy is the art of establishing priorities. Demonization is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one. The test is not absolute satisfaction but balanced dissatisfaction.