"Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe. As it distinguishes between truth and opinion, so it distinguishes between truth and idolatry. All nations are tempted — and few have been able to resist the power for long — to clothe their own aspirations and action in the moral purposes of the universe. To know that nations are subject to the moral law is one thing, while to pretend to know with certainty what is good and evil in the relations among nations is quite another. There is a world of difference between the belief that all nations stand under the judgment of God, inscrutable to the human mind, and the blasphemous conviction that God is always on one's side and that what one wills oneself cannot fail to be willed by God also."
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Academics from the United StatesAcademics from GermanyJews from the United StatesPhilosophers from GermanyNon-fiction authors from Germany
Original Language: English
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Six Principles of Political Realism, § 5
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hans_Morgenthau
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Hans Morgenthau
Hans Morgenthau (17 February 1904 -19 July 1980) was one of the leading twentieth-century figures in the study of international politics. He made landmark contributions to international-relations theory and the study of international law.
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