Quotessence
Home / Authors / George F. Kennan
George F. Kennan

George F. Kennan Quotes

Diplomat

Filter quotes by topic

AllWorldIfsPeoplePolicyRussiaStatesUnitedUnited StatesAmericaCountryHumansImmigrationKnowsPoliticalTendenciesWarAgeCertainEndsForeign Policy

Famous George F. Kennan Quotes

“The United States cannot reshape other countries in its own image and that, with a few exceptions, its efforts to police the world are neither in its interests nor within the scope of its resources. This whole tendency to see ourselves as the center of political enlightenment and as teachers to a great part of the rest of the world strikes me as unthought-through, vainglorious and undesirable.”

WorldCountryStatesWholeAmericaPoliticalInterestUnitedEffortUnited StatesTeacherEnlightenmentResourcesPoliceStrikesTendenciesExceptionOther CountriesScopeUndesirable
Author:George F. Kennan
Create image

“...there is an optimal balance, depending on the manner of man's life, between the density of human population and the tolerances of nature. This balance, in the case of the United States would seem to me to have been surpassed when the American population reached, at a very maximum, two hundred million people, and perhaps a good deal less.”

PeopleMenHumansHas BeensTwoStatesSeemsUnitedDealsMillionsCasesUnited StatesBalanceHundredPopulationToleranceImmigrationMaximumDensityOptimalHuman Population
Author:George F. Kennan
Create image

“It is obviously easier, for the short run, to draw cheap labor from adjacent pools of poverty...than to find it among one's own people. And to the millions of such prospective immigrants from poverty to prosperity, there is, rightly or wrongly, no place that looks more attractive than the United States. Given its head, and subject to no restrictions, this pressure will find its termination only when the levels of overpopulation and poverty in the United States are equal to those of the countries from which these people are now so anxious to escape.”

PeopleLooksCountryStatesRunningGivenLevelsUnitedPovertyMillionsUnited StatesSubjectsEasierEqualDrawsLaborPressureProsperityImmigrationAttractiveImmigrantsAnxiousPoolRestrictionOverpopulationTerminationCheap Labor
Author:George F. Kennan
Create image