Quotes by Dean Acheson

• The most important aspect of the relationship between the president and the secretary of state is that they both understand who is president.
• No people in history have ever survived who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.
• The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.
• The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
• The great corrupter of public man is the ego. Looking at the mirror distracts one's attention from the problem.
• Negotiation in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.
• The manner in which one endures what must be endured is more important than the thing that must be endured.
• I will undoubtedly have to seek what is happily known as gainful employment, which I am glad to say does not describe holding public office.
• Washington is like a self-sealing tank on a military aircraft. When a bullet passes through, it closes up.
• The greatest mistake I made was not to die in office.
• Negotiating in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.
• If we learn the art of yielding what must be yielded to the changing present, we can save the best of the past.
• I learned from the example of my father that the manner in which one endures what must be endured is more important than the thing that must be endured.
• Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role.
• Controversial proposals, once accepted, soon become hallowed.
• Always remember that the future comes one day at a time.
• A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.
• We have actively sought and are actively seeking to make the United Nations an effective instrument of international cooperation.
• It is worse than immoral, it's a mistake.