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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The best environment for diplomacy is found where mutual confidence between governments exists.
~ Dean Acheson

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It is a mistake to interpret too literally and sweepingly the poet’s admonition that things are not what they seem. Sometimes they are, and it is often essential to survival to know when they are and when they are not.
~ Dean Acheson

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