"In the anarchic world of international politics, it is better to be Godzilla than Bambi."

John Mearsheimer Science See all quotes by John Mearsheimer →

React to this quote

More by John Mearsheimer

“Bandwagoning is a strategy for the weak.”

“Great powers must be forever vigilant and never subordinate survival to any other goal, including prosperity.”

“The liberal tradition has its roots in the Enlightenment, that period in the eighteenth-century Europe when intellectuals and political leaders had a powerful sense that reason could be employed to make the world a better place.”

“China, in short has the potential to be considerably more powerful than even the United States.”

“The German air offensives against British cities in World Wars I and II not only failed to coerce the United Kingdom to surrender, but Germany also lost both wars.”

“When an aggressor comes on the scene, at least one other state will eventually take direct responsibility for checking it.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home. My second principle of foreign policy is this—that its aim ought to be to preserve to the nations of the world—and especially, we…"

— William Ewart Gladstone

Politics1809–1898

#politics

"My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do. So my position leads n…"

— Michel Foucault

Literature1926–1984

#politics

"You can see China still cannot offer any real value to the world except as cheap labor, manufacturer, and its own so-called stability. Besides that, I don’t see any creative values and creative mind o…"

— Ai Weiwei

Art1957

#mind

"In retrospect we might have been more cautious about allowing the creation in the 1950s of substantial Muslim communities here, although when one observes the, in some ways, greater problems which Fra…"

— Roy Jenkins

Politics1920–2003

#time