Kevin

“The cause of this transformation, effected by the Meiji Restoration from 1868 onward, was the determination of influential members of the Japanese elite to avoid being dominated and colonized by the West, as seemed to be happening elsewhere in Asia, even if the reform measures to be taken involved the scrapping of the feudal order and the bitter opposition of the samurai clans.39 Japan had to be modernized not because individual entrepreneurs wished it, but because the “state” needed it. After”
― Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers

“Conquest has made me what I am and only conquest can enable me to hold my position.”
― Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers

“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Omnidirectional peaceful diplomacy” is all very well for the present, but how useful will it be if an overextended United States does withdraw from its Asian commitments, or finds it impossible to protect the flow of oil from Arabia to Yokohama? How useful if there is another Korean war? How useful if China begins to dominate the region? How”
― Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers