Henry L. Stimson Quotes

• The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way you can make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Trust, Life Lesson, Men

  Henry L. Stimson (2016). “On Active Services In Peace And War”, p.416, Read Books Ltd

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• Their racial characteristics are such that we cannot understand or trust even the citizen Japanese.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Citizens, Characteristics

  Henry L. Stimson's diary statement on the WWII Internment of Japanese Americans, February 10, 1942.

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• We face the delicate question of the diplomatic fencing to be done so as to be sure Japan is put into the wrong and makes the first bad move. ... The question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into the position of firing the first shot.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Moving, Japan, Faces

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• But I think the bomb instead constitutes merely a first step in a new control by man over the forces of nature too revolutionary and dangerous to fit into old concepts.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Men, Thinking, Bombs

  Henry L. Stimson (2016). “On Active Services In Peace And War”, p.416, Read Books Ltd

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• Honor begets honor; trust begets trust; faith begets faith; and hope is the mainspring of life.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Faith, Christian, Hope

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• History is often not what actually happened but what is recorded as such.

  Henry L. Stimson

  History, Happened

  Henry L. Stimson (2016). “On Active Services In Peace And War”, p.7, Read Books Ltd

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• If you are going to try to go to war, or to prepare for war, in a capitalist country, you have got to let business make money out of the process or business won't work.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Country, War, Trying

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• Gentlemen don't read each other's mail.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Gentleman, Mail

  On Active Service in Peace and War ch. 7 (1948). Stimson was explaining his action, while secretary of state in 1929, in closing the State Department's codebreaking office. The 1948 book, coauthored with McGeorge Bundy, is the earliest known appearance of this quotation. Louis Kruh, in his article "Stimson, the Black Chamber, and the 'Gentleman's Mail Quote," Cryptologia, Apr. 1988, concludes that these words accurately represented Stimson's feelings in 1929 but that "whether he also said it the

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• We had news this morning of another successful atomic bomb being dropped on Nagasaki. These two heavy blows have fallen in quick succession upon the Japanese and there will be quite a little space before we intend to drop another.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Morning, Successful, Blow

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• When the news first came that Japan had attacked us my first feeling was of relief that ... a crisis had come in a way which would unite all our people. This continued to be my dominant feeling in spite of the news of catastrophes which quickly developed.

  Henry L. Stimson

  War, Japan, People

  Henry L. Stimson (2016). “On Active Services In Peace And War”, p.262, Read Books Ltd

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• The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Trust, Men, Father Son

  "The bomb and the opportunity" by Henry L. Stimson, Harper's Magazine, March 1946.

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• The bomb and the entrance of the Russians into the war will certainly have an effect on hastening the victory.

  Henry L. Stimson

  War, Eyebrows, Victory

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• As to the war with Japan, the President had already received my memorandum in general as to the possibility of getting a substantial unconditional surrender from Japan which I had written before leaving Washington and which he had approved.

  Henry L. Stimson

  War, Unconditional Love, Japan

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• Russia will occupy most of the good food lands of central Europe while we have the industrial portions. We must find some way of persuading Russia to play ball.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Russia, Europe, Land

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• History knows no greater display of courage than that shown by the people of the Soviet Union.

  Henry L. Stimson

  War, People, World

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• We think it will be shortly afterwards, but it seems a terrible thing to gamble with such big stakes in diplomacy without having your master card in your hand.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Thinking, Hands, Cards

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• When all the arguments have been forgotten, this central fact will remain. The two nations fought a single war, and their quarrels were the quarrels of brothers.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Brother, War, Two Nations

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• The President so far has struck me as a man who is trying hard to keep his balance. He certainly has been very receptive to all my efforts in these directions.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Men, Effort, Balance

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• It seems as if everybody in the country was getting impatient to get his or her particular soldier out of the Army and to upset the carefully arranged system of points for retirement which we had arranged with the approval of the Army itself.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Country, Retirement, Army

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• There has been growing quite a strain of irritating feeling between our government and the Russians and it seems to me that it is a time for me to use all the restraint I can on these other people who have been apparently getting a little more irritated.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Government, Eyebrows, People

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• A private meeting with Hoover is like sitting in a both of ink.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Ink, Sitting, Hoover

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• Hope is the mainspring of life.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Hopeful

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• Marriage should be a duet -- when one sings, the other claps. Joe Murray The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Marriage, Men, Duets

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• Now the thing is not to get into unnecessary quarrels by talking too much and not to indicate any weakness by talking too much; let our actions speak for themselves.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Talking, Weakness, Our Actions

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• We debated long over the situation for it is a very difficult question and all of us recognize its difficulty.

  Henry L. Stimson

  Difficult Questions, Long, Difficulty

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