“When tough times come, it is particularly important to offset them with much gentle softness. Be a pillow.”
Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
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Vera Nazarian 38
American writer 1966Related quotes
“when times are tough, the weak bail and the tough get creative.”
Response to a question by George Carey (a former Archbishop of Canterbury), after the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (26 January 2003), as to whether the US had given due consideration to the use of "soft power" vs "hard power" against the regime of Saddam Hussein; this has sometimes been portrayed as an accusation by an Archbishop of Canterbury that the United States was engaged in "empire building", in which Powell's response has been paraphrased:
2000s
Context: There is nothing in American experience or in American political life or in our culture that suggests we want to use hard power. But what we have found over the decades is that unless you do have hard power — and here I think you're referring to military power — then sometimes you are faced with situations that you can't deal with.
I mean, it was not soft power that freed Europe. It was hard power. And what followed immediately after hard power? Did the United States ask for dominion over a single nation in Europe? No. Soft power came in the Marshall Plan. Soft power came with American GIs who put their weapons down once the war was over and helped all those nations rebuild. We did the same thing in Japan.
So our record of living our values and letting our values be an inspiration to others I think is clear. And I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of or apologize for with respect to what America has done for the world.
We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we've done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own, you know, to seek our own lives in peace, to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.
“There comes a time when the nation is more important than an individual.”
After he was ousted as the Vice president of Kenya by the 2nd president of Kenya, Daniel Toroitich arap Moi on 18 March 2002. Life and times of Professor George Saitoti http://www.kenyan-post.com/2012/06/life-and-times-of-prof-george-saitoti.html
Source: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
Quoted in "Why Oscar Niemeyer is king of curves" http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/architecture_and_design/article3035080.ece, Tom Dyckhoff, The Times Online (London, 2007-12-12).
About the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States, quoted in 'You don't want to go to war with a president' https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/03/anthony-fauci-trump-coronavirus-crisis-118961, 3 March 2020, Politico.
