Quotes About Realpolitik

un príncipe que a toda costa quiere ser bueno, cuando de hecho está rodeado de gentes que no lo son no puede menos que caminar hacia un desastre.

Niccolò Machiavelli

Generally it must be stated that realpolitik has been better at dividing than at ruling. Take it as a whole since Kissinger called on the Shah in 1972, and see what the harvest has been.

What's distinctively shocking about Machiavelli is that he didn't care. He believed not only that politicians must do evil in the name of the public good, but also that they shouldn't worry about it. He was unconcerned, in other words, with what modern thinkers call 'the problem of dirty hands.'

No nation has friends only interests

a man who wishes to profess goodness at all times will come to ruin among so many who are not so good. Hence it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge . . . according to necessity.'25

Bismarck urged that foreign policy had to be based not on sentiment but on an assessment of strength," Kissinger wrote. That would also become one of Kissinger's guiding principles.

The essence of foreign policy, is deciding which son of a bitch to support -in 1941, Hitler or Stalin; in 1972, Brezhnev or Mao; in 1979, Somoza or Ortega. One has to choose. A blanket anti-son of a bitch policy, like a blanket anti-ethnic cleansing policy, is soothing, satisfying and empty. It is not a policy at all but righteous self-delusion.

For decades, Europe and America have been selling arms, both officially and on the black market, to the very people you now label 'terrorists.' War and business, always they go hand in hand—it's realpolitik. Nothing ever really changes, human nature is what it is.

You have to deal with people the way they are, not the way you'd like them to be.

Realpolitik for Bismarck depended on flexibility and on the ability to exploit every available option without the constraint of ideology.

America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests

Shakespeare's ambiguous lubricity in Venus is less disturbing than the bleakly moral emphasis of Lucrece , where virtue is so low-spirited, its exclamation so lachrymose and its justification the nasty realpolitik of Roman Republicanism. The sun has not dried the dew on the grass in Venus , but the ill-lit world of Livy's Rome darkens Lucrece . The first poem lives out of doors; the second is in a permanent chiaroscuro.

There are no morals in politics there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel.

There are no morals in politics; the is only experience. A scoundrel may be of use because he is a scoundrel

Well, I'm not that much into ideals. I can't see the point of it.

No nation has friends only interests.

America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.

Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good. Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires.

The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.

The great questions of the time are not decided by speeches and majority decisions—that was the error of 1848 and 1849—but by iron and blood.