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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  George Frost Kennan (1904–)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 621
AUTHOR: George Frost Kennan (1904–)
QUOTATION: Now this problem of the adjustment of man to his natural resources, and the problem of how such things as industrialization and urbanization can be accepted without destroying the traditional values of a civilization and corrupting the inner vitality of its life—these things are not only the problems of America; they are the problems of men everywhere. To the extent that we Americans become able to show that we are aware of these problems, and that we are approaching them with coherent and effective ideas of our own which we have the courage to put into effect in our own lives, to that extent a new dimension will come into our relations with the peoples beyond our borders, to that extent, in fact, the dreams of these earlier generations of Americans who saw us as leaders and helpers to the peoples of the world at large will begin to take on flesh and reality.
ATTRIBUTION: GEORGE F. KENNAN, “The Unifying Factor,” Realities of American Foreign Policy, p. 116 (1954).

This was originally delivered as the fourth of the Stafford Little Lectures, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, March 1954.
SUBJECTS: Foreign policy