You can't argue with a river, it isgoing to flow.You can dam it up?put it to useful purposes?deflect it, but you can't argue with it. Dean Acheson More Quotes by Dean Acheson More Quotes From Dean Acheson The task of a public officer seeking to explain and gain support for a major policy is not that of the writer of a doctoral thesis, qualification must give way to simplicity of statement, nicety and nuance to bluntness, almost brutality, in carrying home a point. Dean Acheson top-news The great corrupter of public man is the ego. Looking at the mirror distracts one's attention from the problem. Dean Acheson mirror great man ego Negotiating in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree. Dean Acheson sense than more classic It is worse than immoral, it's a mistake. Dean Acheson worse than immoral mistake