Quotes About Diplomacy

They found themselves up against the new satraps sent to the region by the victorious Artaxerxes.

The Spartans would never afterwards sign up to any treaty that included recognition of Messene as a free polis.

providing the leadership that had eluded both Athens and Sparta for so long.

Heraclius made a humiliating offer of peace.

If it had been accepted, it would have turned the Roman state into a Persian vassal.

On the occasions when city-states did work together, it was usually in temporary alliances for mutual self-protection.

The satraps, in turn, were content to allow the Greek city-states to manage their internal affairs

Alexander, son of Philip, and the Hellenes, excluding the Lacedaemonians

speech and costumes of visitors he encountered at the imperial court in the capital.

The Byzantine governor assembled an army considerably larger than that of the Normans and rebels. He then sent a herald to the opposing camp offering either the Normans' safe return to Lombard territory or battle. In response, an enormous Norman knight smashed his mailed fist on the head of the Byzantine herald's horse; the horse fell dead on the spot. (Yes, this actually happened, historians agree.)23 The battle began the next day.

si la política interior es mala, tendremos la peor política exterior.

The Venetians briefed shamelessly on both sides according to the set of tested maxims: "It is better to treat all enemy rulers as friends," one seasoned politician advised, "and all friends as potential enemies.

Any method of negotiation may be fairly judged by three criteria: It should produce a wise agreement if agreement is possible. It should be efficient. And it should improve or at least not damage the relationship between the parties.

The ability to see the situation as the other side sees it, as difficult as it may be, is one of the most important skills a negotiator can possess.

The more extreme the opening positions and the smaller the concessions, the more time and effort it will take to discover whether or not agreement is possible.

For more interesting examples from the Law of the Sea negotiations, see James K. Sebenius, Negotiating the Law of the Sea: Lessons in the Art and Science of Reaching Agreement (Harvard University Press, 1984).

Like it or not, you are a negotiator.

With all due respect, Fred, I'm the president of the United States. Let them in.

Washington once advised his adopted grandson that where there is no occasion for expressing an opinion, it is best to be silent. For there is nothing more certain than that it is at all times more easy to make enemies than friends.

Humor has a way of bringing people together. It unites people. In fact, I'm rather serious when I suggest that someone should plant a few whoopee cushions in the United Nations.

Another term for preventive war is aggressive war - starting wars because someday somebody might do something to us. That is not part of the American tradition.

There's nothing wrong with being a Conservative and coming up with a Conservative believe in foreign policy where we have a strong national defense and we don't go to war so carelessly.

Just think of what Woodrow Wilson stood for: he stood for world government. He wanted an early United Nations, League of Nations. But it was the conservatives, Republicans, that stood up against him.

What is not conservative about saying, 'Don't go to war unless we go to war properly with a full declaration of war and no other way?'