Great Powers Quotes

Genuine association of interest on the part of the great powers must precede the transformation of the united nations military alliance into a political society of nations.

All great nations inevitably end up committing suicide.

I believe some of the tensions the U.S. has had with Russia and that the Europeans have had with Russia... China is taking advantage of some of those dealings.

Great powers are granted the legitimacy to exercise power on the global stage, but the price is a willingness to act—at least at the margins and consistent with their self-interest—for the common good.

The atomic clock ticks faster and faster. We may anticipate a state of affairs in which the Great Powers will each be in a position to put an end to the civilization and life of the other, though not without risking its own. We may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle, each capable of killing the other but only at risk of his own life.

The centuries old Westphalian state system has never resolved the tension between the principle of the sovereign equality of states and the idea that great powers enjoy certain privileges and bear special responsibilities.

When great powers fade, as they inevitably must, it's normally for one of two reasons. Some powers exhaust themselves through overreach abroad, underinvestment at home, or a mixture of the two. This was the case for the Soviet Union. Other powers lose their privileged position with the emergence of new, stronger powers.

Mysticism has been in the past and probably ever will be one of the great powers of the world and it is bad scholarship to pretend the contrary.

The possession of great powers no doubt carries with it a contempt for mere external show.

What really matters for great powers is power—national economic and military strength—and that speaks loudly and clearly for itself.

Great powers engage.

I'm suggesting that, ironically, the secret to becoming a world 'hyperpower' is tolerance. If you look at history, you see great powers being very tolerant in their rise to global dominance.

Keeping small nations enslaved because of the deals between the great nations or because of any pragmatic considerations that might have been there are totally unacceptable.

We shall continue, in this era of negotiation, to work for the limitation of nuclear arms and to reduce the danger of confrontation between the great powers.

Today the Great Powers openly emphasize the League of Nations while behind the scenes they steadily expand their military armaments. We cannot dismiss as the foolish talk of idiots those who predict the outbreak after 1936 of a second world war. We must be prepared …

The first World War in so many ways shaped the 20th century and really remade our world for the worse.

Why four great powers should fight over Serbia no fellow can understand.

In old days nations could collect only portions of their men and resources at a time and dribble them out by degrees. Under modern conditions whole nations could be mobilized at once and their whole life-blood and resources poured out in a torrent. Instead of a few hundreds of thousands of men meeting each other in war, millions would now meet, and modern weapons would multiply manifold the power of destruction. The financial strain and the expenditure of wealth would be incredible. I thought this must be obvious to everyone else, as it seemed obvious to me ; and that, if once it became apparent that we were on the edge, all the Great Powers would call a halt and recoil from the abyss.

You know, great powers don't get angry, great powers don't make decisions hastily in a crisis.

I wish we could see understanding the First World War as a European issue, or even a global one, and not a nationalistic one.

It is essential in the highest interests, not merely of this country, but of the world, that Britain should at all hazards maintain her place and her prestige amongst the Great Powers of the world. Her potent influence has many a time been in the past, and may yet be in the future, invaluable to the cause of human liberty. It has more than once in the past redeemed Continental nations, who are sometimes too apt to forget that service, from overwhelming disaster and even from national extinction

I don't want to directly confront great powers, which we cannot defeat on their terms. They have more money, more clout, more airtime. We cannot be effective without a mass movement, and the American people today are too comfortable to adapt to a mass movement.

The moment it became in the interests of one or the other of the Great Powers to alter the status quo, none of these treaty structures ever stood in the way of such alteration.

[War] can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.

Science has produced such powerful weapons that in a war between great powers there would be neither victor nor vanquished. Both would be overwhelmed in destruction.