"Systems can create consequences not intended by any other of their constituent actors."

Joseph Nye Science See all quotes by Joseph Nye →

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“Cooperation is difficult in the absence of communication.”

“Power, like love, is easier to experience than to define or measure.”

“The international system consists not only of states. The international political system is the pattern of relationships among the states.”

“Some observers feel it is harder to change public opinion in democracies than it is to change policies in totalitarian countries.”

“Humans sometimes make surprising choices, and human history is full of uncertainties.”

“Any sense of global community is weak.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Americans have a special horror of giving up control, of letting things happen in their own way without interference. They would like to jump down into their stomachs and digest the food and shovel th…"

— William S. Burroughs

Literature1914–1997

#power

"In this conflict , Mussolini for the moment stood on the other side of the barricades; on 10 June, destined to be a redolent date in Fascist history, he urged: ‘We must take up again our anti-militari…"

— R.J.B. Bosworth

1943

#history

"We in this country, as in other Liberal and democratic countries, have a perfect right to exalt the principle of self-determination, but it comes ill out of the mouths of those in totalitarian States …"

— Winston Churchill

Politics1940–2010

#ethics