Heroism is endurance for one moment more.
George F. Kennan

One sometimes feels a guest of one's time and not a member of its household.
George F. Kennan

The accords were fig leaves of democratic procedure to hide the nakedness of Stalinist dictatorship.
George F. Kennan

The best an American can look forward to is the lonely pleasure of one who stands at long last on a chilly and inhospitable mountaintop where few have been before, where few can follow and where few will consent to believe he has been.
George F. Kennan

The best thing we can do if we want the Russians to let us be Americans is to let the Russians be Russian.
George F. Kennan

The very concept of history implies the scholar and the reader. Without a generation of civilized people to study history, to preserve its records, to absorb its lessons and relate them to its own problems, history, too, would lose its meaning.
George F. Kennan