If I have said nothing new tonight, it may well be because, in a family of nations as in families of individuals we should expect nothing more sensational than growth.
~ Dean Acheson

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Force can overcome force, but a free society cannot long steel itself to dominate another people by sheer force.
~ Dean Acheson

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Vietnam was worse than immoral — it was a mistake.
~ Dean Acheson

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Vietnam was worse than immoral — it was a mistake.
~ Dean Acheson

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Not all the arts of diplomacy are learned solely in its practice. There are other exercise yards.
~ Dean Acheson

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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.
~ Dean Acheson

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The qualities which produce the dogged, unbeatable courage of the British, personified at the time by Winston Churchill, can appear in other settings as stubbornness bordering on stupidity.
~ Dean Acheson

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My constant appeal to American liberals was to face the long, hard years and not to distract us with the offer of short cuts and easy solutions begotten by good will out of the angels of man’s better nature … The road to freedom and peace is a hard one.
~ Dean Acheson

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A mixture of frustration and progress is the daily grind of foreign affairs.
~ Dean Acheson

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The simple truth is that perseverance in good policies is the only avenue to success.
~ Dean Acheson

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