Quotes About Diplomacy

Stay a little while longer, and let everyone congratulate you - including the ones who clearly don't want to: in fact, especially the ones who clearly don't want to. You don't have to say anything but 'thank you

But it is not, as we say when we are being diplomatic, a fruitful source of inquiry.

the British Government became determined that when victory came they should be in a position to impose terms, not only on the defeated enemy, but also on their victorious allies.

When King Edward's charm and influence defused six centuries of Anglo-French rivalry and led to the signing of the Entente Cordiale in 1904, the Kaiser saw this as yet another cunning British attempt to unite Europe against Germany.

you can say whatever you want so long as you say it with respect.

Philip of Macedonia in a message to Sparta: "You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people and raze your city." Sparta's reply: "If.

Tanks could not solve what was essentially a political problem. If the revolution in Afghanistan could only be sustained with Soviet bayonets, that was a route down which the Soviet Union should not go.

To get what we want, we are compelled to negotiate.

systematic tools for getting results, whether in business or international diplomacy, summed up in Beyond Machiavelli and Getting It DONE;

Be hard on the problem, soft on the people.

It is easy to forget sometimes that a negotiation is not a debate. Nor is it a trial.

Sidestep their attack and deflect it against the problem.

Recast an attack on you as an attack on the problem.

The soft negotiating game emphasizes the importance of building and maintaining a relationship.

Even apart from a shared interest in averting joint loss, there almost always exists the possibility of joint gain. This may take the form of developing a mutually advantageous relationship, or of satisfying the interests of each side with a creative solution.

Rather than resisting the other side's criticism, invite it.

Although the border between Canada and the United States is disputed, and has been disputed for a century or more, the chances that this dispute will lead to war are zero. The

The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee," he once said, "and I pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.

He thought America's character would be defined by how it treated its vanquished enemies, and he wanted to graduate from bitter wartime grievances to the forgiving posture of peace.

After the French and Indian War, the British vacillated about whether to swap all of Canada for the island of Guadeloupe; in the event the French toasted their own diplomatic cunning in retaining the sugar island.

Rather than make peace with John Adams, he was ready, if necessary, to blow up the Federalist party and let Jefferson become president.

Things seldom happened accidentally to George Washington, but he managed them with such consummate skill that they often seemed to happen accidentally. By 1775 he had a fine sense of power—how to gain it, how to keep it, how to wield it.

It was the same act of ventriloquism: the State Department talked, and Tom Lamont moved his lips.

Davison had an uncanny gift in sensing the proper moment for changing the topic, for giving the discussion a timely new turn, thus avoiding a clash or deadlock.