Charles E. Bohlen famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

In dealing with the Communists, remember that in their mind what is secret is serious, and what is public is merely propaganda.
-- Charles E. Bohlen

#Secret #Mind #Serious
A non-Communist premier with Communist ministers would be like a woman trying to stay half pregnant.
-- Charles E. Bohlen

#Trying #Would Be #Half
[N]ine-tenths of the people who are in the Home Service don't want to go abroad. They are people who live in Washington and have gotten acquainted with the jungle of this town and know their way around.
-- Charles E. Bohlen

#Home #People #Want
You see, the Foreign Service of the United States has grown so unbelievably in the last twenty years, and the requirements for admission are so high, and yet an awful lot of the work, I'd say fully 50-percent of the work in the Foreign Service abroad, is really routine work. All this is something that no one has licked.... You get a certain amount of discontent. It's bad for morale.
-- Charles E. Bohlen

#Years #Routine Work #Twenties

I liked the fact she understood how we all have little secret habits that seem normal enough to us, but which we know better than to mention out loud.
One of my secrets is to joke all the time.
I have no secrets; all of these things have been discussed at length in guitar magazines over the years but are far too elaborate to cover in one article.
The mind is like a river. The thoughts are like the various droplets of water. We are submerged in that water. Stay on the bank and watch your mind.
Why should you mind being wrong if someone can show you that you are?
The selection of a book-plate is such a serious matter.
Art is too serious to be taken seriously.
Long gone are the days of the stylised old James Bond films with Roger Moore karate chopping his way through the bad guys - audiences are not going to buy it anymore. The genre has got quite serious now.
I'm not a big theory person. So when I get asked questions that demand serious statements, I just make it up.
There is nothing truly serious in life. All words sound hollow when one listens to them carefully.

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