A Quote by Dominique de Villepin
In a world where the threat is asymmetrical, where the weak defy the strong, the power of conviction, the capacity to convince, the ability to sway opinion count as much as the number of military divisions.
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The threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel. That's a threat, a serious threat. It's a threat to world peace; it's a threat, in essence, to a strong alliance. I made it clear, I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally, Israel.
Where the Government is weak, military sway prevails.
At the end of the Cold War, the prevailing view in Washington was that the U.S. was strong, and Russia was weak and did not count in a unipolar world. We disregarded Russia's opposition to NATO expansion, the Iraq War, and the U.S.-led military intervention in Serbia for the independence of Kosovo.
A conventional valuation which is established as the outcome of the mass psychology of a large number of ignorant individuals is liable to change violently as the result of a sudden fluctuation of opinion due to factors which do not really make much difference to the prospective yield; since there will be no strong roots of conviction to hold it steady.
The will to power, as the modern age from Hobbes to Nietzsche understood it, far from being a characteristic of the strong, is, like envy and greed, among the vices of the weak, and possibly even their most dangerous one. Power corrupts indeed when the weak band together in order to ruin the strong, but not before.
The Senate Majority Leader has the unilateral ability to stand up and say, 'If you defy Congress, if you defy the Constitution, if you defy the American people, none of your nominees will be confirmed.'
While leadership depends on depth of conviction and the power coming therefrom, there must also be the ability to share that conviction with others.
If you think you are only strong if you can lift a certain number, whatever that number is, you will feel pretty weak most of the time. Strength is not a data point; it’s not a number. It’s an attitude.
How do women still go out with guys, when you consider the fact that there is no greater threat to women than men? We're the number one threat to women. Globally and historically, we're the number one cause of injury and mayhem to women... You know what our number one threat is? Heart disease.
I also think that we [Americans] are operating out of fear in our country. It's not that terrorism is not a threat, but it's not an existential threat. It is not the preeminent threat facing most Americans on any given day, and yet the power of nightmares is so strong.
True encounter with Christ liberates something in us, a power we did not know we had, a hope, a capacity for life, a resilience, an ability to bounce back when we thought we were completely defeated, a capacity to grow and change, a power of creative transformation.
When the weak want to give an impression of strength they hint menacingly at their capacity for evil. It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.
Military power tends to be a function of economic power, and the British Navy was the essential capability for establishing the imperial sway - which was attuned to furnish the raw materials for the British manufacturing ascendance. So they were mutually reinforcing.
All truths are erroneous. This is the very essence of the dialectical process: today's truths become errors tomorrow; there is no final number. This truth (the only one) is for the strong alone. Weak-nerved minds insist on a finite universe, a last number; they need, in Nietzsche's words, "the crutches of certainty". The weak-nerved lack the strength to include themselves in the dialectic syllogism.
Every Christian community must realize that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of fellowship.
There is no doubt that America remains the premier political, economic, military power in the world, and I both expect and count on it remaining so, because I think that's certainly in our best interest but also the best interests of the world.
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