Quotes by Dean Acheson

“Always remember that the future comes one day at a time.”

“The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.”

“Americans assume Canada to be bestowed as a right and accept this bounty as they do air without thought or appreciation.”

“Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role.”

“The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull. This is not always easy to achieve.”

“Negotiation in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.”

“The future comes one day at a time.”

“A memorandum is written to protect the writer - not to inform his reader.”

“Americans assume Canada to be bestowed as a right and accept this bounty as they do air without thought or appreciation.”

“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.”

“I am willing to join in your statement on the ground that I feel about the future of the United States whenever the President starts out on his travels the way the Marshal of the Supreme Court does...”

“A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.”

“Vietnam was worse than immoral — it was a mistake.”

“How could the USA champion individual freedom in the world generally while denying it to an important minority in its own country.”

“The experiences of the years...have brought the country, particularly its young people, to a mood of depression, disillusion, and withdrawal from the effort to affect the world.”

“In response, Acheson wrote to tell a tale of large conceptions, great achievements...Its hero is the American people.”

“Plainly plenty of work was waiting to be done. The question was: would the State Department do it? I proposed to have a shot at finding out.”

“General Marshall was impatient with a type of nonsense particularly prevalent in the State Department known as 'kicking the problem around.' All of us who have work with General Marshall have repor...”

“I must plead guilty as any of escaping into immediate busywork to keep from the far harder task of peering into a dim future, which, of course, should be one of a diplomat's main duties.”

“My memory...is of a department without direction, composed of a lot of busy people working hard and usefully but as a whole not functioning as a foreign office. It did not chart a course to be furt...”