Brzezinski Quotes & Sayings

We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

We should seek to cooperate with Europe, not to divide Europe to a fictitious new and a fictitious old. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

The first and most important is to emphasize the enduring nature of the alliance relationship particularly with Europe which does share our values and interests even if it disagrees with us on specific policies. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Marxism represents a further vital and creative stage in the maturing of man's universal vision ... The nation-state is gradually yielding its sovereignty ... More intensive efforts to shape a new world monetary structure will have to be undertaken. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

I never exploited my father's role in helping Jews avoid the concentration camps. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

However, if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war? — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Too rich to be relevant to the world's poor, [Europe] attracts immigration but cannot encourage imitation. Too passive regarding international security. Too self-satisfied, it acts as if its central political goal is to become the worlds most comfortable retirement home. Too set in its ways, it fears multicultural diversity — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Bipartisanship helps to avoid extremes and imbalances. It causes compromises and accommodations. So let's cooperate. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

There are major disappointments with the outcomes of Solidarity: corruption, and major pockets of economic backwardness and even poverty. By and large, though, if there were a choice between the life Poles led in the 1970s and 1980s and now, nobody but a lunatic would say they wanted to have back what they had before. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

I always start my day with a red-eye misto - two shots, extra hot, extra foam - from Starbucks. — Mika Brzezinski

I realize that of all people, I am no expert on parenting or marriage. — Mika Brzezinski

Because when you kill 300 people, 400 people, who have nothing to do with the provocations Hezbollah staged, but you do it in effect deliberately by being indifferent to the scale of collateral damage, you're killing hostages in the hope of intimidating those that you want to intimidate. And more likely than not you will not intimidate them. You'll simply outrage them and make them into permanent enemies with the number of such enemies increasing. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

The world became more aware that America-despite being the hope of many who have the personal drive and ambition to become part of the "American dream"-is beset by serious operational challenges: a massive and growing national debt, widening social inequality, a cornucopian culture that worships materialism, a financial system given to greedy speculation, and a polarized political system — Zbigniew Brzezinski

We have to stop judging people who are struggling with their weight. — Mika Brzezinski

My parents found me very difficult to educate. — Mika Brzezinski

My family was always active, and our thing was family walks. Not walks around the block, but more like eight-mile hikes up mountains. — Mika Brzezinski

There is an element of paranoia in this inclination to view any serious attempt at a compromised peace as somehow directed against Israel. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Our world is integrated to an unprecedented degree, while the global political awakening is injecting into interstate relations an intense amount of tension, emotion, even irrationality, which could cumulatively produce circumstances that preclude an effective and genuinely shared universal response to new global problems. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

I was confident about America and the idea that in America people can become American without masking their ethnic identity. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

I cite these events because I think they underline two very disturbing phenomena - the loss of U.S. international credibility, the growing U.S. international isolation. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Russia can be either an empire or a democracy, but it cannot be both ... Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

I have no patience for those in the American Jewish community who just go around slandering people as anti-Semites without realizing that what they're doing is really trivializing anti-Semitism. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

We have a large public that is very ignorant about public affairs and very susceptible to simplistic slogans by candidates who appear out of nowhere, have no track record, but mouth appealing slogans — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Women play into each other's weaknesses. — Mika Brzezinski

To increase the zone of peace is to build the inner core of a stable international zone. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

I am a marathon worker and marathon mother. I'll spend three or four days completely swallowed up by work. And if I make it home in time to say good night, I may have one good hour with the girls, maybe a brief family dinner or a family walk with the dog, and then it is back on the computer to prepare for tomorrow's shows. — Mika Brzezinski

Today we are again witnessing the emergence of transnational elites ... [Whose] ties cut across national boundaries ... It is likely that before long the social elites of most of the more advanced countries will be highly internationalist or globalist in spirit and outlook ... The nation-state is gradually yielding its sovereignty ... Further progress will require greater American sacrifices. More intensive efforts to shape a new world monetary structure will have to be undertaken, with some consequent risk to the present relatively favorable American position. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

It cannot be stressed enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire [95]. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Finding a job is hard enough, but have you ever considered the odds and the challenges of finding a good man? — Mika Brzezinski

We should be therefore supporting a larger Europe, and in so doing we should strive to expand the zone of peace and prosperity in the world which is the necessary foundation for a stable international system in which our leadership could be fruitfully exercised. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

The legitimacy of the leadership depends on what that country thinks of its leaders. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Sovereignty is a word that is used often but it has really no specific meaning. Sovereignty today is nominal. Any number of countries that are sovereign are sovereign only nominally and relatively. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

The odds are definitely better on getting the right job than getting a good partner for life. Someone who will grow with you. Someone to develop memories with. Someone who was there in the beginning. Someone who will be there at the end. — Mika Brzezinski

We have actually experienced in recent months a dramatic demonstration of an unprecedented intelligence failure, perhaps the most significant intelligence failure in the history of the United States. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

I think it is important to ask ourselves as citizens, not as Democrats attacking the administration, but as citizens, whether a world power can really provide global leadership on the basis of fear and anxiety? — Zbigniew Brzezinski

The ongoing changes in the distribution of global power and mounting global strife make it all the more imperative that America not retreat into an ignorant garrison-state mentality or wallow in self-righteous cultural hedonism — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Technology will make available to the leaders of major nations, techniques for conducting secret warfare, of which only a bare minimum of the security forces need be appraised ... techniques of weather modification could be employed to produce prolonged periods of drought or storm. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

The scope of America's global hegemony is admittedly great, but its depth is shallow, limited by both domestic and external restraints. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

I think the US has the right to have its own national security policy. I think most Americans would agree with that. And therefore clarity on this issue is important and especially if we commit ourselves, explicitly and bindingly, to Israel's security. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Not to mention the fact that of course terrorists hate freedom. I think they do hate. But believe me, I don't think they sit there abstractly hating freedom. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Moreover, they [the Central Asian Republics] are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

After being let go from CBS and looking for a year for work, I will never catch myself complaining about being too busy. — Mika Brzezinski

Meanwhile, I have been reminded that weight is about a lot more than dress size and how I look. My weight was stealing my life from me, piece by piece. Refocusing on health, instead of size and looks, has helped me recognize that I have to make a commitment for the long haul. That's the only way. Dieting does not work. I know, you've read that before, but it's really true. I should know, because that's what I've done all my life. I dieted my way up to weighing 256 pounds. No more. This time I am remaking my life. — Mika Brzezinski

I consider my girls the greatest gift from God in life. And I also love the career that I have built, lost and rebuilt. But the highs and lows of my career would not have been as exciting or manageable to me if I didn't have children and a partner for life with whom to share it all. — Mika Brzezinski

More directly linked to the impact of technology, it involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled and directed society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite whose claim to political power would rest on allegedly superior scientific know-how. Unhindered by the restraints of traditional liberal values, this elite would not hesitate to achieve its political ends by using the latest modern techniques for influencing public behavior and keeping society under close surveillance and control. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Nation state as a fundamental unit of man's organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

One has to define very clearly what one's objectives are, determine in advance how much one is prepared to pay to achieve that objective and then act accordingly. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia ... Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia - and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Benchmarks are targets that have to be fulfilled. They cannot be fulfilled in an indefinite period of time, so there are timetables in benchmarks." (On the "benchmarks" used by George W. Bush — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Instead of further mucking around in the Middle East, Brzezinski is seeking to marshal all remaining US-UK resources for a final onslaught on Moscow, Beijing, and the other countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the main focal point of world resistance to London and Washington. This is Brzezinski's new Operation Barbarossa. The financiers who control Brzezinski are now fielding Obama as the plausible public face for a new era of brutal and bellicose imperialist subversion and geopolitics which will be advertised on the basis of multiculturalism and dignity through selfdetermination attained through the subversion, balkanization, partition and subdivision of existing states, instead of the narrow and venomous Islamophobia which has been the constant and strident note of the Bush-Cheney neocons. — Anonymous

There is an element of delusional obsession in the French political elite's preoccupation with the notion that France is still a global power. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

The dynamic character of China's nonstatist economic transformation, including its social openness to the rest of the world, is not mutually compatible in the long run with a relatively closed and bureaucratically rigid Communist dictatorship. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

I remember an interview so terrible with CNN's Jon Klein, I nearly blurted out, 'Forget it, I am a loser!' But I didn't need to say it. My face and posture did. — Mika Brzezinski

It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

I've worked with Ed Bradley, Dan Rather and lots of different local news anchors. — Mika Brzezinski

The key point to bear in mind is that Russia cannot be in Europe without Ukraine also being in Europe, whereas Ukraine can be in Europe without Russia being in Europe. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

My salary situation at 'Morning Joe' wasn't right. I made five attempts to fix it, then realized I'd made the same mistake every time: I apologised for asking. — Mika Brzezinski

Let's cooperate and challenge the administration to cooperate with us because within the administration there are also moderates and people who are not fully comfortable with the tendencies that have prevailed in recent times. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Often I feel like I can run forever. If someone told me I had to run for 10 hours, I probably could. — Mika Brzezinski

These days, I am the most boring, methodical runner. I always do the same three- to five-mile loop near my home every evening. I hardly ever miss a day. On the weekends, I might go longer or add in weights. — Mika Brzezinski

We cannot have that relationship if we only dictate or threaten and condemn those who disagree. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

I love tomatoes, and they're so good for you. — Mika Brzezinski

I don't want to impose rules on people, but you have only a short window, and you're sorely mistaken if you think you can put off having a family. It's very hard to find a good man, and it's never a 'good time' to have a baby if you have a career. — Mika Brzezinski

I am up at 3:30, reading the op-ed pages and getting ready to be on the air by 6 A.M. on the set of 'Morning Joe,' and after three hours of TV and two hours on the radio, it is only 12 noon. — Mika Brzezinski

If, after the election, you find a Cy Vance as Secretary of State and a Zbigniew Brzezinski as head of National Security, then I would say we failed. And I'd quit. — Hamilton Jordan

The Israelis have a lot of influence with Congress, and in some cases they are able to buy influence. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

I did something a lot of people will have to do in this economy if they want to eventually land their dream job. I turned down an offer to take a high-paying position in another field because it wouldn't fulfill me. — Mika Brzezinski

No matter how deeply disturbing the thought of using the environment to manipulate behavior for national advantages to some, the technology permitting such use will very probably develop within the next few decades. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

I suffered from a mild case of postpartum depression after my second child and the physical challenge of maintaining an overnight shift at CBS, a marriage, and two in diapers made the symptoms worse and everyone in the house paid the price. — Mika Brzezinski

I desperately miss my girls when I am working, and I often feel guilty, but also feel the journey I am on is for them too. When I am on my 16th hour of a day and can barely keep my eyes open, they drive me forward. — Mika Brzezinski

We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Despite my professional experience, the fifteen-hour workdays, and a successful new show that I had helped build, MSNBC was still refusing to pay me what I was worth. — Mika Brzezinski

Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

To resolve conflicts, excessive ambitions and one's own fears and aspirationis must be sacrificed. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

A fundamental lesson on being fired: Never lie about it. People will know what you're saying is a cover-up for how you really feel - embarrassed, discouraged, and afraid. — Mika Brzezinski

Henceforth, the United States may have to determine how to cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of Eurasia, thereby threatening America's status as a global power. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

At 2:26 AM on 3 June 1980, Colonel William Odom of the Strategic Air Command alerted National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski that the US nuclear warning system had detected an imminent 220-missile nuclear attack on the US. Shortly thereafter, the automated system revised its projection from 220 missiles to an all-out attack of 2200 missiles. Just before Brzezinski was about to wake up President Carter to authorize a counterattack, he was told that the 'attack' was an illusion caused by 'a computer error in the system'. — Stansfield Turner

For me, having it all doesn't mean having the corner office at work and a penthouse at home if there aren't kids running around as I'm trying to cook my husband something special. — Mika Brzezinski

The United States can certainly defeat North Vietnam, but the United States cannot defeat a guerrilla war which is being raged from a sanctuary through a pattern of penetration, intervention, evasion, which is very difficult for a technologically advanced country like the United States to combat. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Israel's international position is very badly damaged. A country which started off as a symbol of recovery of a people who were greatly persecuted now looks like a country that is persecuting people. And that's very bad. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

It follows that America's primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

A bad boyfriend is someone you give everything to - you live with him, cook for him, sleep with him - thinking he is going to marry you and then he doesn't. When you are giving your all to a job and not getting credit, your job is a bad boyfriend. — Mika Brzezinski

Like so many empires before it, the Soviet Union eventually imploded and fragmented, falling victim not so much to a direct military defeat as to disintegration accelerated by economic and social strains. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Don't push away that chance if you're one of the lucky ones who find that partner. And remember, you can always change a job. I hear it's much harder to switch out a husband. — Mika Brzezinski

At almost forty years old, I assumed my career on camera was over. And I was certainly given that message by all the TV managers and news directors who passed on me when I was trying to get a job back in the business. — Mika Brzezinski

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski should be herded into a rocket and shot into space for their brown-nosing of Trump A — Matt Taibbi

I am not afraid to say my relationship with my man is important, even vital, to who I am as a person. — Mika Brzezinski

This regionalization is in keeping with the Tri-Lateral Plan which calls for a gradual convergence of East and West, ultimately leading toward the goal of one world government. National sovereignty is no longer a viable concept. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

In fact, an Islamic revival - already abetted from the outside not only by Iran but also by Saudi Arabia - is likely to become the mobilizing impulse for the increasingly pervasive new nationalisms, determined to oppose any reintegration under Russian - and hence infidel - control. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

The most immediate task is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

Women face enough pressures and challenges in a workplace that is still depressingly biased against a female's success. Add to that, the fact that the very thing many women I know find most rewarding (having kids) is now frowned upon. — Mika Brzezinski

People, governments and economies of all nations must serve the needs of multinational banks and corporations. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

We have to unclutter our brains from worries that maybe people don't like us. Women tend to worry about popularity; it doesn't matter if they like you. They need to respect you. They need to show that respect for you in your pay check. And that needs to be okay. — Mika Brzezinski

Because you can't intervene everywhere, you don't conclude you can't intervene anywhere. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

I have mugs of hot water every morning because the studio is cold, and also because it makes my throat sound clearer. — Mika Brzezinski

When it comes to Jewish sensitivity, I don't find the proposition compelling that non-Jews have no right to comment. We all have the right to comment about each other. And I object when people say that these comments are motivated by anti-Semitism. — Zbigniew Brzezinski