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Quote by Stanley Hoffmann

Work

World Disorders: Troubled Peace in the Post-Cold War Era

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Author

Stanley Hoffmann
Stanley Hoffmann

Stanley Hoffmann was an accomplished American political scientist and foreign policy expert. He served as a professor at Harvard University, known for his in-depth research on international relations and European politics during the Cold War. Hoffmann's academic career encompassed a wide range of contributions from theory to practice, and his writings and teaching have had a significant impact on understanding modern international politics. more

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“State first, subject second, statesman last.”

“In real life, the political and strategic games used by politicians and statesmen are in fact social games - requiring social intelligence as well as technical mastery of information. The skills of the orator, cultivated by ancient statesmen like Cicero and Demosthenes, or by modern statesmen like Benjamin Disraeli and Abraham Lincoln, require emotional maturity and the talent of seeing events through the eyes of others. A great statesman sets aside his own egoism. He takes a more objective view. In this way, he avoids the errors that attend a purely egoistic standpoint. The explanation which Kierkegaard offered, which is none too flattering, is that people no longer desire a great king, a heroic liberator or an authoritative religion. They don’t want strict rules or high standards. That is because they want an easy time of it. They want a soft existence which can only be guaranteed by eschewing the great and heroic, the true and the noble. This is the moral perspective of high politics and of true statesmanship. Only those who reach this fifth stage can transform world calamity into world regeneration.”