Konrad Adenauer citations
Konrad Adenauer
Date de naissance: 5. janvier 1876
Date de décès: 19. avril 1967
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer , né le 5 janvier 1876 à Cologne et mort le 19 avril 1967 à Rhöndorf, est un homme d'État allemand membre de l'Union chrétienne-démocrate.
Opposant au nazisme après l'avènement du Troisième Reich, il fut, de 1949 à 1963, premier chancelier fédéral de la République fédérale d’Allemagne, auteur de son redressement et de son ancrage atlantiste et européen. Il peut être ainsi considéré comme le « fondateur » de l'Allemagne contemporaine. Adenauer est, avec le général de Gaulle, l'un des promoteurs de la réconciliation franco-allemande. Il est également considéré comme l'un des pères fondateurs de la construction européenne aux côtés de Robert Schuman, Jean Monnet, Johan Willem Beyen, Paul-Henri Spaak et Alcide De Gasperi.
Surnommé Der Alte , il est le plus vieux dirigeant exécutif d'une démocratie dans l'histoire, ayant atteint ses 87 ans à la chancellerie fédérale.
Citations Konrad Adenauer
„We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon.“
— Konrad Adenauer
Context: We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon. In an instant age, perhaps we must relearn the ancient truth that patience, too, has its victories.
Quoted in The Atlantic Community Quarterly v.14-15 (1976-1978), p. 200
„I wish that an English statesman might once have spoken of us as Western Europeans.“
— Konrad Adenauer
Adenauer's remarks on an Associated Press interview (5 October 1945)
„I reserve the right to be smarter today than I was yesterday.“
— Konrad Adenauer
As quoted in Loggers' Handbook Vol. 36 (1976), p. 72; also in [https://books.google.com/books?id=I1KaAAAAIAAJ North Western Reporter, Second series (1992)]; similar remarks have been attributed to others, including more recent attributions to Adlai Stevenson and Abraham Lincoln.
Variant:
I insist on being smarter today than I was yesterday.
As quoted in How to Win the Meeting (1979) by Frank Snell, p. 3
„We will never forget. If it takes us five or ten or twenty years, we will never rest until we get our revenge.“
— Konrad Adenauer
As quoted by General Sir Charles Fergusson in a memorandum (10 July 1945), recalling conversations with Adenauer in 1918-1919, at the end of World War I. As published in Adenauer : The Father of the New Germany (2000) by Charles Williams
„In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that he did not also limit his stupidity.“
— Konrad Adenauer
As quoted in Through Russian Eyes : President Kennedy's 1036 Days (1973) by Anatoliĭ Andreevich Gromyko, p. 128
„One does not throw out dirty water as long as one doesn't have any clean water.“
— Konrad Adenauer
Statement about Hans Globke, as quoted in [http://www.n-tv.de/politik/BND-ueberprueft-Eichmann-Infos-article184945.html "In eigener Sache" at n-tv (8 June 2006)]
„What do I care about my chitchat from yesterday?“
— Konrad Adenauer
As quoted in Discussion : Mastering the Skills of Moderation (2009) by Horst Hanisch, p. 91
