History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world gave a chance for it. – Walter Bagehot
An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle. – Walter Bagehot
Under a Presidential government, a nation has, except at the electing moment, no influence; it has not the ballot-box before it; its virtue is gone, and it must wait till its instant of despotism again returns. – Walter Bagehot
Public opinion is a permeating influence, and it exacts obedience to itself; it requires us to drink other mens thoughts, to speak other mens words, to follow other mens habits. – Walter Bagehot
The great battleground for the defense and expansion of freedom today is the whole southern half of the globe… the lands of the rising peoples. Their revolution is the greatest in human history. They seek an end to injustice, tyranny and exploitation. More than an end, they seek a beginning. – John Fitzgerald Kennedy