Dean Acheson - Time Quotes

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The heads of these divisions, like barons in a feudal system weakened at the top by mutual suspicion and jealousy between king and prince, were constantly at odds if not at war... For the most part the barons were knowledgeable people performing in a way the times had completely outdated, a fact of which they were quite unaware.

Dean Acheson
Time spent in the advertising business seems to create a permanent deformity like the Chinese habit of footbinding.

Dean Acheson
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 reported a recurring outburst of his: 'Don't fight the problem, gentlemen, solve it!' With him the time to be devoted to analysis of a problem, to balancing 'on the one hand' against 'on the other hand,' was definitely limited. The discussion he wanted was about plans of action "

Dean Acheson
To leave positions of great responsibility and authority is to die a little, but the time comes when that must be faced.

Dean Acheson
... the Assistant Secretary in Charge of Administration (was) a job which should be undertaken only by a saint or a fool... the House and Senate subcommittees in charge of appropriations, their chairmen, and the Comptroller General's office make this job perfect hell. Like an ill-tempered chatelaine of a medieval manor, her keys hanging from her belt, Congress parsimoniously and suspiciously doles out supplies for the shortest time, each item meticulously weighed and measured, each request at first harshly denied. Almost simultaneously yesterday's accounting goes on amid screamed accusation and denunciation of every purpose of policy.

Dean Acheson
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