Quoted by Graham Allison , in A Conversation with Henry Kissinger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPqxISYxjcI
“Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.”
Letter to John F. Kennedy (2 March 1962), printed in Galbraith's Ambassador's Journal (1969)
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John Kenneth Galbraith 207
American economist and diplomat 1908–2006Related quotes
“Politics is the art of the possible.”
Franklin says this line in the HBO miniseries John Adams, but it is actually a quote of Otto von Bismarck.
(de) Die Politik ist die Lehre vom Möglichen. Interview (11 August 1867) with Friedrich Meyer von Waldeck of the St. Petersburgische Zeitung: Aus den Erinnerungen eines russischen Publicisten. 2. Ein Stündchen beim Kanzler des norddeutschen Bundes.
In: Die Gartenlaube (1876) p. 858 de.wikisource. Reprinted in Fürst Bismarck: neue Tischgespräche und Interviews, Vol. 1, p. 248 http://books.google.com/books?id=UpUBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA248&dq=%22die+Politik+ist+die+Lehre+vom+Möglichen%22
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Otto von Bismarck / Quotes / 1860s
Misattributed
“Politeness is the art of choosing among one's real thoughts.”
Madame de Staël http://books.google.com/books?id=i4wBAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Politeness+is+the+art+of+choosing+among+one%27s+real+thoughts%22&pg=PA79#v=onepage (1881)
“The whole art of politics consists in directing rationally the irrationalities of men.”
As quoted in obituary '"Reinhold Niebuhr Is Dead; Protestant Theologian, 78" by Alden Whitman in The New York Times (2 June 1971) http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/books/niebuhr.pdf
Introduction, p. 16
The Age of Reform: from Bryan to F.D.R. (1955)
Review of Arthur Koestler’s The Act of Creation, in the New Statesman, 19 June 1964
1960s
Original: Il legame tra noi e la musica consiste nello scegliere ciò che ci piace e ci fa star bene, non ciò che ci viene imposto.
Source: prevale.net
En général, l’art du gouvernement consiste à prendre le plus d’argent qu’on peut à une grande partie des citoyens, pour le donner à une autre partie.
"Money" (1770)
Citas, Questions sur l'Encyclopédie (1770–1774)
Quoted in: William Sharp McKechnie (1896). The State & the Individual: An Introduction to Political Science, with Special Reference to Socialistic and Individualistic Theories https://archive.org/details/stateindividuali00mckeuoft. p. 77