We must care to think about the unthinkable things, because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.

As a conservative power, the United States has a vital interest in upholding and expanding the reign of law in international relations.

Power tends to confuse itself with virtue, and a great nation is peculiarly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God's favor.

The great majority of the Senate of the United States...somewhere around 80 percent...are completely in support of Israel, anything Israel wants. This has been demonstrated time and again, and this has made it difficult.

The cause of our difficulties in southeast Asia is not a deficiency of power but an excess of the wrong kind of power which results in a feeling of impotence when it fails to achieve its desired ends.

There are two Americas. One is the America of Lincoln and Adlai Stevenson; the other is the America of Teddy Roosevelt and the modern superpatriots. One is generous and humane, the other narrowly egotistical; one is self-critical, the other self-righteous; one is sensible, the other romantic; one is good-humored, the other solemn; one is inquiring, the other pontificating; one is moderate, the other filled with passionate intensity; one is judicious and the other arrogant in the use of great power.

The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership.... a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures.