Quotes About Diplomacy

French and Swiss villages existed side by side along a largely invisible border, but Switzerland did not wish to wipe France from the map. Nor did the Swiss beseech their sons to shed the blood of French infidels. Gradually

That's true," said Gabriel. "The American president writes love letters to the ayatollah. And us . . ." He gave an indifferent shrug of his shoulders but said nothing more.

And once, during an Oval Office meeting with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador to Washington, Trump divulged highly classified intelligence supplied by a close ally in the Middle East—intelligence that was so sensitive it was not shared widely within the US government. That Middle Eastern ally was Israel, and the breach reportedly put at risk an operation that had given Israeli intelligence a window on the inner workings of the Islamic State in Syria.

the Americans did that. The president and his advisers were too quick to part ways with the Arab strongmen. Now the president's confronted with a world gone mad, and he doesn't have a clue as to what to do about it.

Daniel Silva

They were racing westward along the A89 Autoroute, the chief of the Israeli secret intelligence service and the future king of Saudi Arabia.

It's been 10 Years since 9/11. Ten years, Gabriel repeated, and Saudi Arabia is still a cash machine for terrorists and Sunni extremist groups. There's only one possible explanation. The deal with the devil has been renewed. The House of Saud side is willing to turn a blind eye to Islamic terror as long as the secret rage is directed outward, away from the oil fields.

It's been ten years since 9/11. Ten years, Gabriel repeated, and Saudi Arabia is still a cash machine for terrorists and Sunni extremist groups. There's only one possible explanation. The deal with the devil has been renewed. The House of Saud is willing to turn a blind eye to Islamic terror as long as the secret rage is directed outward, away from the oil fields.

To Pakistan? Or Afghanistan? Or Wherever-the-fuck-istan?

An important United Nations environmental conference went past 6:00 in the evening when the interpreters' contracted working conditions said they could leave. They left, abandoning the delegates unable to talk to each other in their native languages. The French head of the committee, who had insisted on speaking only in French throughout the week suddenly demonstrated the ability to speak excellent English with English-speaking delegates.

Al-Qaeda is on our side in Syria," Jake Sullivan, foreign policy advisor to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, famously wrote to his boss via email on February 12, 2012. The US public was unaware of this.

Peace in Palestine is inevitable. The question is how do we make it happen today.

I never let my politics supersede my manners.

No, make something different from war. Don't allow your enemies to be enemies. Make them something else, because otherwise they have a power over you that they should not have. If you think in the same ways as the past, you will only get new versions of the past. Think differently.

Killing foreigners is no substitute for protecting Americans.

A great many grown-up and intelligent people believe, or pretend to believe, that by behaving in a friendly and accommodating way to our attackers, we will show them that they have nothing to fear from us and so defuse their wrath. The idea that such behavior would be taken by a ruthless and implacable enemy only as a sign of weakness is as foreign to them as the idea of honor itself.

In religious matters a traveller loses nothing by civility.

Well, nobody can live longer in peace than his neighbor chooses. Nevertheless, it is not fair.

Nature is not simply a technical or economical resource, and human beings are not mere numbers. To suggest that one can somehow align all the squabbling institutions of science, environmental management, government and diplomacy in an alliance of convenience to regulate the global climate seems to me optimistic.

Were there peace and justice in the Middle East, the Arabs would no more need their tinhorn dictators than they would their corpulent princes.

To avoid entangling alliances has been a maxim of our policy ever since the days of Washington, and its wisdom no one will attempt to dispute.

The U.N. was set up not to get us to Heaven but only to save us from Hell.

by universal custom, your enemy is never more polite than when he is planning or has planned your destruction.

The best lawyers are those who can win without arguing