Top 100 Stephen Kinzer Quotes
#1. It is not far-fetched to draw a line from Operation Ajax through the Shah's repressive regime and the Islamic Revolution to the fireballs that engulfed the World Trade Center in New York.
Stephen Kinzer
#2. For decades, Turkey was widely viewed as a reliable NATO ally: prickly at times, but safely in America's corner.
Stephen Kinzer
#3. The Afghans are probably the world champions in resisting foreign domination and infiltration into their country.
Stephen Kinzer
#4. Iran's most formidable modern leader, Reza Shah Pahlavi, was obsessed with the idea of building a steel mill, but in 1941, soon after he assembled all the components, Allied armies invaded Iran, and the project had to be abandoned.
Stephen Kinzer
#5. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has denounced negotiation with Iran as a 'historic mistake' that is making the world 'a more dangerous place.' His partners in Washington vigorously echo that view.
Stephen Kinzer
#6. As publishers focus on blockbusters, they steadily lose interest in little-known authors from other countries.
Stephen Kinzer
#8. The long conflict between Israel and Palestine has, for better or worse, become the world's conflict. It permanently destabilizes the Middle East, blocks the settlement of urgent crises, and intensifies looming threats to the West.
Stephen Kinzer
#9. Accepting that Arabs have the right to elect their own leaders means accepting the rise of governments that do not share America's pro-Israel militancy.
Stephen Kinzer
#10. No step the United States could take anywhere in the world would bring strategic benefits as great as detente with Iran.
Stephen Kinzer
#11. The fundamentals of what journalism is about don't necessarily change. What will change is the delivery of news.
Stephen Kinzer
#12. In 1907, Britain and Russia signed a treaty dividing Iran between them; no Iranian was at the negotiations or even knew they were taking place.
Stephen Kinzer
#13. On December 4, 1972, President Salvador Allende of Chile told the United Nations General Assembly that his country would "no longer tolerate the subordination implied by having more than eighty percent of its exports in the hands of a small group of large foreign companies.
Stephen Kinzer
#14. For many years as a foreign correspondent, I not only worked alongside human rights advocates, but considered myself one of them. To defend the rights of those who have none was the reason I became a journalist in the first place. Now, I see the human rights movement as opposing human rights.
Stephen Kinzer
#15. More than half of Guatemalans are pureblooded Indians, descendants of the proud Maya-Quiche tribes. In their mist-shrouded villages, the Indians worship the corn god and the rain god, only vaguely concerned with the political entity known as Guatemala.
Stephen Kinzer
#16. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers created the 'Fertile Crescent' where some of the first civilizations emerged. Today they are immensely important resources, politically as well as geographically.
Stephen Kinzer
#17. The capture, taming, training and keeping of eagles is highly ritualized. Most of the birds, which have a life span of about 40 years, are caught when very young - either snatched from a nest or trapped in a baited net.
Stephen Kinzer
#18. One October day in 1976, a Cuban airliner exploded over the Caribbean and crashed, killing all 73 people aboard. There should have been 74. I had a ticket on that flight, but changed my reservation at the last moment and flew to Havana on an earlier plane.
Stephen Kinzer
#19. Was Castro sincere when, during his guerrilla war, he swore that he was not a Communist? If so, when did he change, and why? Looking back, does he believe he might have chosen a better course?
Stephen Kinzer
#20. Successive American presidents have turned a blind eye to piles of evidence that Saudi money is being used to foment holy war against America.
Stephen Kinzer
#21. American strategic doctrine suggests that Mexico is of second-level importance to the United States. It ranks below Japan and Indonesia, Brazil and India, Egypt and Israel, and European powers including Britain, France, and Germany. This is a grave geopolitical miscalculation.
Stephen Kinzer
#22. During the Cold War, the non-aligned movement tried to become a 'third force' in world politics, but failed because it was too large and unwieldy.
Stephen Kinzer
#23. The United States is now harbouring Luis Posada Carriles. His continued freedom mocks victims of terrorism everywhere. It also shows how heavily the 'war on terror' is overlaid with politics and hypocrisy.
Stephen Kinzer
#24. To kill weeds, you must pull them up at the roots,
Stephen Kinzer
#25. Americans had to choose between permitting them to become democracies or maintaining power over them. It was an easy choice.
Stephen Kinzer
#26. Other places are also generators of far-flung violence beyond their own borders - Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are obvious examples - but none has as long a history of war, resistance, and terror as Chechnya.
Stephen Kinzer
#27. One of the immutable patterns of history is the rise and fall of great powers. Those that survive are the ones that adapt as the world changes.
Stephen Kinzer
#28. A few of the world's most famous non-American novelists have large followings in the United States, among them Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Guenter Grass, who were both popular even before winning the Nobel.
Stephen Kinzer
#29. During the Cold War, America took sides not only in disputes between Arab countries, but also in debates within them.
Stephen Kinzer
#30. At the end of the day, there is still one function of journalism that cannot be computerized, and that is reporters. You're always going to need reporters.
Stephen Kinzer
#31. My general view is the delivery of news is changing in dramatic ways, and will continue to change into ways we can't even predict.
Stephen Kinzer
#32. Archaeologists have made discoveries that challenge fundamental traditions of Judaism as well as those of Christianity and Islam.
Stephen Kinzer
#33. In a ravenous fifty-five-day spasm during the summer of 1898, the United States asserted control over five far-flung lands with a total of 11 million inhabitants: Guam, Hawaii, Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. Never in history has a nation leaped so suddenly to overseas empire. At
Stephen Kinzer
#34. Saudi Arabia supplies much oil to the U.S. And it is the world's largest consumer of American weaponry.
Stephen Kinzer
#35. Chechens are Muslim, and some share the belief that the West is engaged in a global campaign against Islam.
Stephen Kinzer
#36. To frustrated Americans who have begun boycotting BP: Welcome to the club. It's great not to be the only member any more!
Stephen Kinzer
#37. No one will presumably ever be able to prove or disprove such fundamental religious principles as the existence of God.
Stephen Kinzer
#38. Western powers remain imprisoned by the idea that the world is a dangerous place, that it needs to be managed, and that they are called upon to do the managing.
Stephen Kinzer
#39. After installing friendly leaders in Iran and Guatemala, the United States lost interest in promoting democracy in either country.
Stephen Kinzer
#40. American oil companies - including Amoco, Unocal, Exxon, Pennzoil - have invested billions of dollars in Azerbaijan and plan to invest billions more. As a result, they have developed a strongly pro-Azerbaijan position.
Stephen Kinzer
#41. Allowing a friend to careen toward self destruction is not friendship. That is a habit the United States needs to break as it pursues a richer and more deeply supportive relationship with Israel.
Stephen Kinzer
#42. Many Afghan intellectuals in the United States believe that their country is best kept together. They are encouraged by the fact that no leading tribal or political figure there has called for secession.
Stephen Kinzer
#43. Mexico needs schools, rural development, and an independent judiciary, not high-tech weaponry.
Stephen Kinzer
#44. In 1983, most Nicaraguans had still not fallen to the depths of deprivation and despair which they would reach in later years, but many were already unhappy and restive.
Stephen Kinzer
#45. Since German reunification in 1990, historians and researchers have been free to work in the East, where the lost Nazi art collection disappeared.
Stephen Kinzer
#46. Honduras is strongly anti-Communist, maintains no diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, and has provided vital support for United States-backed rebels fighting to overthrow the Sandinistas in neighboring Nicaragua.
Stephen Kinzer
#47. No one will ever be able to say what the comandantes would have done with their historic opportunity in Nicaragua if they had not been confronted with civil war.
Stephen Kinzer
#48. Because Iranians have had to fight so long and painfully for political freedom, they have a deep appreciation for its value - perhaps deeper than many in the West who take their electoral rights for granted.
Stephen Kinzer
#49. The United States has dealt with the Middle East and surrounding regions for many decades in the context of the Cold War.
Stephen Kinzer
#50. The key to Turkey's success has been its ability to reinvent itself as times change.
Stephen Kinzer
#51. The reason that Americans have not been able to see the great strategic benefit that could accrue from a closer relationship with Iran is emotion.
Stephen Kinzer
#52. On Aug. 19, 1953, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran became the first victim of a C.I.A. coup. Ten months later, on June 27, 1954, President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala became the second.
Stephen Kinzer
#53. The withdrawal of more than half a million Russian troops and dependents from Germany since 1991 is described by historians as 'the biggest pullout ever by an army not defeated in battle.'
Stephen Kinzer
#54. New media and mobile entertainment are revolutionizing the way people learn about the world.
Stephen Kinzer
#55. There is very little hope that the United States or anyone else can do much to stabilize Iraq, Libya, Syria or Egypt. Stabilizing Iran, and bringing it back into the family of nations, is much more possible. That would be a 'win' for both sides.
Stephen Kinzer
#56. In his tub-thumping speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention, Romney sounded like the hedge-fund tycoon he is.
Stephen Kinzer
#57. Challenging orthodoxy is a death sentence in Washington.
Stephen Kinzer
#58. Congress, it turns out, is filled with Republicans and Democrats eager to act as enablers for the most repressive forces in Iran.
Stephen Kinzer
#59. Castro has lived almost his entire life as a clandestine revolutionary. To such figures, truth is always malleable, always subservient to political goals.
Stephen Kinzer
#60. Pakistan is not about to crack down on terror groups or cut its military budget in order to build roads, schools and hospitals.
Stephen Kinzer
#61. During the 1980s, international interest in the Nicaraguan war was intense. No conflict since the Spanish civil war had provoked such passion around the world. It was a classic good-versus-evil war.
Stephen Kinzer
#62. Sultan Mehmet had good relations with the Medici family and other powerful Italian clans, especially in Venice and Florence, and at his request, they sent him artists and craftsmen by the dozen.
Stephen Kinzer
#63. Sultan Beyazid considered his father's art collection decadent and ordered it sold at auction.
Stephen Kinzer
#64. The difficulty that many foreign authors face in having their works translated into English has effects far beyond the United States.
Stephen Kinzer
#66. One day, Mexico will have a leader who is nationalist not simply in rhetoric, but also in fact.
Stephen Kinzer
#67. It is cheering to find a newspaper of the great influence and circulation of the Journal that tells the facts as they exist, and ignores the suggestions of various kinds that emanate from sources that cannot be described as patriotic or loyal to the flag.
Stephen Kinzer
#68. 'Operation Ajax' presents history in an entirely new way. It takes a true story and uses cutting-edge technology, never before used in this way, to bring it to spectacular life.
Stephen Kinzer
#69. As British and French imperialism ebbed following the end of the Second World War, America became the main outside player in Arab affairs.
Stephen Kinzer
#70. Turkey and Brazil, though half a world apart geographically, have much in common. Both are large countries that spent long years under military dominance, but have broken with that history and made decisive steps towards full democracy.
Stephen Kinzer
#71. Mayors of New York are almost automatically national figures.
Stephen Kinzer
#72. Rebels in Darfur have learned the value of mobilizing western human rights groups to prolong wars, and this lesson is working gloriously for them.
Stephen Kinzer
#73. Iran, in its former incarnation as Persia, created the world's first empire, produced titanic figures like Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes, and is one of the great fonts of world culture.
Stephen Kinzer
#74. The United States is holding hundreds of suspected terrorists in prisons at Guantanamo and elsewhere. Many are locked up indefinitely. They have not been tried or even charged with any crime.
Stephen Kinzer
#75. Afghanistan's borders are arbitrary, drawn to meet 19th-century political needs rather than to respect ethnic or religious patterns.
Stephen Kinzer
#76. If a leader comes to office in a seemingly fair election and tolerates dissent, he or she qualifies for our seal of approval.
Stephen Kinzer
#77. Well, Colonel, there is diplomacy and there is reality. Our ambassador represents diplomacy. I represent reality. And the reality is we don't want you.
Stephen Kinzer
#78. Guatemala's ornate presidential palace, once a terrifying fortress whose every corridor was patrolled by heavily armed soldiers in berets and camouflage uniforms, is now a normal public building where ordinary citizens enter without fear.
Stephen Kinzer
#79. When Prime Minister Erdogan came to Washington in 2009, he sounded almost like the ambassador from Iran.
Stephen Kinzer
#80. The revolution of 1893 and the annexation that followed undermined a culture and ended the life of a nation. Compared to what such operations have brought to other countries, though, this one ended well.
Stephen Kinzer
#81. Relationships based on deals between leaders or ruling elites tend to collapse amid popular anger.
Stephen Kinzer
#82. He was, as the novelist and muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair wrote, "willing by deliberate and shameful lies, made out of whole cloth, to stir nations to enmity and drive them to murderous war.
Stephen Kinzer
#83. Prairie grassland once covered much of North America's midsection. European settlers turned nearly all of it into farms and ranches, and today the prairie landscape survives mainly in isolated reserves.
Stephen Kinzer
#84. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Latin America moved decisively away from military rule and toward civilian democracy.
Stephen Kinzer
#85. The two largest oil-producing countries in Latin America, Mexico and Venezuela, sold petroleum to Nicaragua at concessional rates for several years beginning in 1980. The program was curtailed because Nicaragua could not make even reduced payments.
Stephen Kinzer
#86. Hostility toward Iran may not be the silliest of all American foreign policies - that would probably be the continuing trade embargo of Cuba - but it is undoubtedly the most self-defeating.
Stephen Kinzer
#87. Many troubled Midwestern towns are grasping for ways to fend off decline and, in some cases, extinction.
Stephen Kinzer
#88. Alliances and partnerships produce stability when they reflect realities and interests.
Stephen Kinzer
#89. Any country that grants asylum to Snowden risks retaliation from the United States, including diplomatic isolation and costly trade sanctions. Several don't seem to care.
Stephen Kinzer
#90. A decision by Germany's highest court that banned the display of crosses or crucifixes in classrooms has sparked widespread outrage and protest.
Stephen Kinzer
#91. Rwanda has emerged from the devastation of genocide and become more secure and prosperous than anyone had a right to expect.
Stephen Kinzer
#92. Turkey is immersed in a profound social and political conflict between secularists, who have been in power since the republic was founded, and an insurgent Islamic-based movement that seeks to increase the role of religion in public life.
Stephen Kinzer
#93. Samarkand, with its magnificent mosques, tombs and dazzling ensembles of ceramic tiles, is still one of the world's most awe-inspiring cities.
Stephen Kinzer
#94. Turks have long admired the sultan, Mehmet II, for his military triumphs, especially his capture of Constantinople, now known as Istanbul, in 1453.
Stephen Kinzer
#95. Life is not shaped by what happens to you but by how you react to what happens to you.
Stephen Kinzer
#96. During the Reagan Administration, so much attention was devoted to fighting Marxism in Nicaragua and El Salvador that Washington lost sight of longer-term challenges in other countries.
Stephen Kinzer
#97. Every nation, like every individual, would like to believe it owes 'no apology' to anyone. Adults realise, however, that few among us are purely innocent or utterly blameless.
Stephen Kinzer
#98. Guerrilla leaders win wars by being paranoid and ruthless. Once they take power, they are expected to abandon those qualities and embrace opposite ones: tolerance, compromise and humility. Almost none manages to do so.
Stephen Kinzer
#99. Conflict with the United States is one of the overwhelming facts of Latin American history.
Stephen Kinzer
#100. No authoritarian leader cedes power easily or turns it over to bodies he cannot control.
Stephen Kinzer
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
