The government can give citizens opportunity and it's their responsibility to take advantage of it.

People do not change when you tell them they should; they change when they tell themselves they must.

The real threat to world stability is not too much American power. It is too little American power.

Great wars can only be fought by great powers.

All policy is a matter of gains and losses, upsides and downsides.

American influence in the world is certainly considerable, but the United States does not control, directly or indirectly, the politics and economics of other societies, as empires have always done, save for a few special cases that turn out to be the exceptions that prove the rule.

One thing worse than an America that is too strong, the world will learn, is an America that is too weak.