A collection of quotes and sayings by John Foster Dulles on success, faith, peace, politics, spiritual, war, violence, attention, man, decision, thought, art, and capacity.
John Foster Dulles was a renowned American diplomat, who played a significant role in the early Cold War era by upholding a hostile stance against communism across the globe. He was a Republican who served as the ‘United States Secretary of State’ from 1953 to 1959, under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He graduated from George Washington University Law School and joined Sullivan & Cromwell, the New York City law firm. Dulles also held the position of the chief foreign policy adviser and, in 1944 and 1948, he stood as the Republican presidential nominee. Here is a list of notable, popular, inspiring and interesting quotes and sayings by John Foster Dulles, which have been corralled from his speeches, public utterances, thoughts, interviews, works, and life. Let us browse through the words of wisdom by John Foster Dulles in form of quotes and thoughts which are quoted extensively.
The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year
- John Foster Dulles
The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year.
- John Foster Dulles
The world will never have lasting peace so long as men reserve for war the finest human qualities. Peace, no less than war, requires idealism and self-sacrifice and a righteous and dynamic faith.
The United States of America does not have friends; it has interests.
- John Foster Dulles
Local defense will always be important. But there is no local defense which alone will contain the mighty land power of the Communist world. Local defense must be reinforced by the further deterrent of massive retaliatory power.
- John Foster Dulles
A man's accomplishments in life are the cumulative effect of his attention to detail.
We walked to the brink and we looked it in the face.
- John Foster Dulles
Forgive everybody everything everyday.
- John Foster Dulles
There are plenty of problems in the world, many of them interconnected. But there is no problem which compares with this central, universal problem of saving the human race from extinction
- John Foster Dulles
Once - many, many years ago - I thought I made a wrong decision. Of course, it turned out that I had been right all along. But I was wrong to have thought that I was wrong
- John Foster Dulles
The mark of a successful organization isn't whether or not it has problems, its whether it has the same problems it had last year.
- John Foster Dulles
A capacity to change is indispensable. Equally indispensable is the capacity to hold fast to that which is good.
- John Foster Dulles
Our institutions of freedom will not survive unless they are constantly replenished by the faith that gave them birth.
- John Foster Dulles
A peaceful world is a world in which differences are tolerated, and are not eliminated by violence.
- John Foster Dulles
Of all tasks of government the most basic is to protect its citizens against violence.
- John Foster Dulles
Our capacity to retaliate must be, and is, massive in order to deter all forms of aggression
- John Foster Dulles
Somehow we find it hard to sell our values, namely that the rich should plunder the poor.
- John Foster Dulles
The principle of neutrality ... has increasingly become an obsolete conception, and, except under very special circumstances, it is an immoral and shortsighted conception.
- John Foster Dulles
The Soviets sought not a place in the sun, but the sun itself. Their objective was the world. They would not tolerate compromise on goals, only on tactics.
- John Foster Dulles
You have to take chances for peace, just as you must take chances in war. Some say that we were brought to the verge of war. Of course we were brought to the verge of war. The ability to get to the verge without getting into the war is the necessary art... If you try to run away from it, if you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost. We've had to look it square in the face... We walked to the brink and we looked it in the face. We took strong action.
- John Foster Dulles
In order to bring a nation to support the burdens of maintaining great military establishments, it is necessary to create an emotional state akin to war psychology. There must be the portrayal of an external menace. This involves the development to a high degree of the nation-hero, nation-villain ideology and the arousing of the population to a sense of sacrifice. Once these exist, we have gone a long way on the path to war.
- John Foster Dulles
I hope the day will never come when the American nation will be the champion of the status quo. Once that happens, we shall have forfeited, and rightly forfeited, the support of the unsatisfied, of those who are the victims of inevitable imperfections, of those who, young in years or spirit, believe that they can make a better world and of those who dream dreams and want to make their dreams to come true.
- John Foster Dulles
Peace will never be won if men reserve for war their greatest efforts, Peace, too, requires well-directed and sustained sacrificial endeavor. Given that, we can, I believe, achieve the great goal of our foreign policy, that of enabling our people to enjoy in peace the blessings of liberty.
- John Foster Dulles
Mankind will never win lasting peace so long as men use their full resources only in tasks of war. While we are yet at peace, let us mobilize the potentialities, particularly the moral and spiritual potentialities, which we usually reserve for war.
The United Nations represents not a final stage in the development of world order, but only a primitive stage. Therefore its primary task is to create the conditions which will make possible a more highly developed organization.
