Quotes About Diplomacy

Only this time Russia has not been able to – and will not be able to – find another Ribbentrop and another Molotov to conclude a new pact prepared by the Kremlin.

Asking NeverTrumpers about the Trump administration is like interviewing Neville Chamberlain on the D-Day Invasion: Katy Tur: Mr. Chamberlain, why a second world war at all? Chamberlain: Well, that's precisely the point! This is a failure of diplomacy. As I said when I returned from Munich . . .

If you could change one thing about this world, what would it be?" Mrs. Peabody asked her. "It would be wars," Myriah replied seriously. "I would stop them. I would say to the people who were making the wars, 'Now you stop that. You settle this problem yourselves like grown-ups. Our children want peace.' That's what I'd change.

President Bush

Here we go again," Obama told me as we entered one hearing in which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was testifying. "We will faithfully pretend to be asking questions, but we will instead give statements. She will faithfully pretend to answer our questions, but will instead answer questions we didn't ask so as to deliver talking points we've all heard before. And the hearing will end, and we will walk out of here, calling it 'democratic accountability.

And here it was 1988, and in Proxmire's words, the Congress had gone sound to sleep: 'We should take a special international prize for gross hypocrisy. The Senate resoundingly passes the ratification of the Genocide Treaty. We thereby tell the world that we recognize this terrible crime. Then what do we do about it? We do nothing about it. We speak loudly but carry no stick at all.

When USUN diplomats committed the cardinal sin of 'admiring the problem,' I would handwrite on their memos, 'If you were Obama, what would you do?' (p. 350).

was reminded of a story about the contentious talks during the nineteenth-century Congress of Vienna. After the Austrian diplomat Metternich was awakened with news that an ambassador he had been sparring with had died in the night, Metternich reportedly asked, "What can have been his motive?

Silence is not always tact and it is tact that is golden, not silence.

Small countries have to come to terms with great ones. Hitler had the power; thus some of his demands had to be accepted.

By now the dream of immediate return had transformed into the reality of long-term struggle. The Palestinians had begun to understand that their return would not come about through diplomatic pressure.

Make enemies if you have to- and you will- but always make sure the most powerful stay your friends.

After Dickinson and Adams had it out over the Olive Branch Petition, Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, that he and Dickinson "are not to be on speaking terms." How sad is it that this tiff sort of cheers me up? If two of the most distinguished, dedicated, and thoughtful public servants in the history of this republic could not find a way to agree to disagree, how can we expect the current crop of congressional blockheads to get along?

When Lafayette visited Monticello in 1824, his old friend Thomas Jefferson toasted him: "When I was stationed in his country for the purpose of cementing its friendship with ours, and of advancing our mutual interests, this friend of both, was my most powerful auxiliary and advocate. He made our cause his own . . . His influence and connections there were great. All doors of all departments were open to him at all times. In truth, I only held the nail, he drove it.

Chevalier d'Éon de Beaumont, had previously served France as both a male soldier in the Seven Years' War and a female secret agent who infiltrated the Russian monarchy, successfully befriending and convincing a Russian czarina not to become an ally of France's enemy Great Britain. No one was entirely sure of his/her gender, and he/she kept them guessing.

President Gamal Abdel Nasser was aware when he closed the Gulf of Aqaba and drove out the U.N. peacekeeping force that Israel had no choice but to fight. Nasser not only threatened the very existence of Israel but defied the governments of France, Great Britain, and the United States, which had pledged themselves to keep Aqaba open.

Be careful that what you write does not offend anybody or cause problems within the company. The safest approach is to remove all useful information

It wasn't just the British foreign secretary whose time was taken up dealing with such things, but the foreign ministers—and in many cases, the prime ministers and presidents and kings—of all the powers, and often over struggles even less significant than that which entangled Curt Prüfer. Amid this din of complaint and trivial offense, how to know what really mattered, how to identify the true crisis when it came along?

he's the only one who didn't slide a piece of paper across the table with a number on it

Let others wage war. You, lucky Austria, shall marry.

Alek coughed politely, If I promise to avoid funny business, could you perhaps remove this knife from my throat?

If you think I'm going to tell my wife she came in second place, you're out of your gourd. I'll convey the apology and not another bloody word.

In politics the middle way is none at all.

My fixed principle never to be the tool of any man, nor the partisan of any nation, would forever exclude me from the smiles and favors or courts.