Top 70 Zbigniew Brzezinski Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Shortly, the public will be unable to reason or think for themselves. They’ll only be able to parrot the information they’ve been given on the previous night’s news.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

2. “In early times, it was easier to control a million people than to kill a million. Today, it is infinitely easier to to kill a million people than to control a million.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

3. “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

4. “The Technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more CONTROLLED society. Such a society would be dominated by ELITE, unrestrained by traditional values.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

5. “People, governments and economies of all nations must serve the needs of multinational banks and corporations.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

6. “Persisting social crisis, the emergence of a charismatic personality, and the exploitation of mass media to obtain public confidence would be the steppingstones in the piecemeal transformation of the United States into a highly controlled society.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

7. “America is now the only global superpower, and Eurasia is the globe’s central arena. Hence, what happens to the distribution of power on the Eurasian continent will be of decisive importance to America’s global primacy and to America’s historical legacy.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

8. “Hegemony is as old as mankind.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

9. “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

10. “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

11. “Because you can’t intervene everywhere, you don’t conclude you can’t intervene anywhere.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

12. “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

13. “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

14. “Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen...”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

15. “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

16. “In the technotronic society the trend would seem to be towards the aggregation of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the reach of magnetic and attractive personalities exploiting the latest communications techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

17. “The Israelis have a lot of influence with Congress, and in some cases they are able to buy influence.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

18. “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

19. “History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

20. “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

21. “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

22. “The Israelis are becoming increasingly like the white supremacist South Africans, viewing the Palestinians as a lower form of life, not hesitating to kill a great many of them and justifying this on the grounds that they are being the objects of terrorism, which is true.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

23. “We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

24. “According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

25. “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

26. “Russia’s only real geostrategic option – the option that would give Russia a realistic international role and also maximize the opportunity of transforming and socially modernizing itself – is Europe.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

27. “The mistakes of the Iraq war are not only tactical and strategic, but historical. It is essentially a war of colonialism, attempted in the post-colonial age.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

28. “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

29. “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

30. “Let’s face it: The Jewish community is the most active political community in American society.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

31. “A great deal of world politics is a fundamental struggle, but it is also a struggle that has to be waged intelligently.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

32. “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

33. “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

34. “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

35. “One has to understand what the enemy is all about: the enemy’s history, the enemy’s culture, the enemy’s aspirations. If you understand these well, you can perhaps move towards peace.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

36. “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

37. “The scope of America’s global hegemony is admittedly great, but its depth is shallow, limited by both domestic and external restraints.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

38. “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

39. “War on terrorism defines the central preoccupation of the United States in the world today, and it does reflect in my view a rather narrow and extremist vision of foreign policy of the world’s first superpower, of a great democracy, with genuinely idealistic traditions.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

40. “In Iraq we must succeed. Failure is not an option.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

41. “To resolve conflicts, excessive ambitions and one’s own fears and aspirationis must be sacrificed.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

42. “Iraq may have been a preview of that, but it’s still redeemable if we get out fast. In a war with Iran, we’ll get dragged down for 20 or 30 years. The world will condemn us. We will lose our position in the world.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

43. “As in all things, it is terribly important to have a sense of priorities in what you do. And to make certain that priorities do not clash.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

44. “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

45. “We cannot have that relationship if we only dictate or threaten and condemn those who disagree.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

46. “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

47. “I was confident about America and the idea that in America people can become American without masking their ethnic identity.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski

48. “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

49. “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

50. “The language of the internet is English, and an overwhelming proportion of the global computer chatter also originates from America, influencing the content of global conversation.”

— Zbigniew Brzezinski