The foremost challenge is that of the knowledge revolution. Economic power will depend on creativity and innovation. Creation of wealth will move from traditional resources to the one asset: knowledge.
On the France's Indochina involvement: "They were engaged in the most dangerous of all activities – deceiving themselves…France was engaged in a task beyond her strength, indeed, beyond the strength of any external power unless it was acting in support of the dominant local will and purpose."
Acheson "never for one moment believed that the holding of office was a source of power – it was an obligation of service."
A bureaucrat is one who has the power to say no” but none to say yes”. Bureaucrats can find an infinite number of reasons for rejecting any proposed change, but can find none for accepting it.
It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist.
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I exhort you never to debase the moral currency or to lower the standard of rectitude, but to try others by the final maxim that governs your own lives, and to suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty which history has the power to inflict on wrong.
