“Appearances are significant, and never more than in politics. You can always sway the crowd, provided you have a good story.”

“...stories are not always innocent;...they can be used to put you in the wrong crowd, in the party of the man who has come to dispossess you.”

“Political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action. It is also aware of the ineluctable tension between the moral command and the requirements of successful political action. And it is unwilling to gloss over and obliterate that tension and thus to obfuscate both the moral and the political issue by making it appear as though the stark facts of politics were morally more satisfying than they actually are, and the moral law less exacting than it actually is.”

“Everyone with any sense and experience in life would rather take his fellows one by one than in a crowd. Crowds are noisy, unreasonable and impatient. They can trample you easier than a single person can. And a crowd will never buy you lunch.”

“Politics always change. Stories never do.”

“China should significantly augment the foreign aid and public goods it provides, so it can use these as a bargaining chip in its efforts to get more say in global decision-making”