By this I mean that a political society does not live to conduct foreign policy; it would be more correct to say that it conducts foreign policy in order to live. George F Kennan
Foreign policy is really domestic policy with its hat on. Hubert Humphrey
We are apt to say that a foreign policy is successful only when the country, or at any rate the governing class, is united behind it. In reality, every line of policy is repudiated by a section, often by an influential section, of the country concerned. A foreign minister who waited until everyone agreed with him would have no foreign policy at all. A J P Taylor
The American foreign policy trauma of the sixties and seventies was caused by applying valid principles to unsuitable conditions. Henry Kissinger
In foreign policy you have to wait twenty-five years to see how it comes out. James Reston
Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us. John F Kennedy
No foreign policy – no matter how ingenious – has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none. Henry Kissinger
The purpose of foreign policy is not to provide an outlet for our own sentiments of hope or indignation; it is to shape real events in a real world. John F Kennedy
Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood. Jimmy Carter
Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government do it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy. P J O’Rourke
We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow. Lord Palmerston