Quotes About Diplomacy

it is negotiating with the Republic of Malta to reassume possession of Fort St. Angelo.

Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.

We are completely in bed with the Israelis to the detriment of the wellbeing of the Palestinians.

An act of terrorism totally outside the bounds of international law and diplomatic tradition. ... a crisis that calls for firmness and restraint.

One of the most basic principles for making and keeping peace within and between nations. . . is that in political, military, moral, and spiritual confrontations, there should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat.

The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government.

One fundamental principle that I have learned in diplomacy is you cannot separate diplomacy from the consequences of action."150 And "[d]iplomacy and power are not discrete activities. They are linked, though not in the sense that each time negotiations stall, you resort to force."151

The Russian delegation, led by Maxim Litvinov, proposed complete and immediate disarmament for everybody; this was rejected out of hand as a Bolshevik trick.

Actually, she had now made it extremely likely that, if Germany developed any expansionist tendencies at all, the French would be dragged into another war—exactly what the alliances were all supposed to avoid.

None of the treaties could disguise the basic fact of European life—a united Germany was potentially the strongest power on the Continent. France began to rearm.

Tarkin smiled. "Someone once said that politics is little more than the systematic organization of hostilities.

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war.

If we are to be one Nation in any respect, it clearly ought to be in respect to other Nations.

It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than War, War is better than tribute.

In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do.

Despite his image as a bloody tyrant, Genghis was also forward thinking. His empire had the first international postal system, invented the concept of diplomatic immunity, and even allowed women in its councils. But more importantly, the Mongols were also unprecedented in their religious tolerance.

Ef you want peace, the thing you've gut tu duIs jes' to show you're up to fightin', tu.

Walls don't work. … Instead of building walls to create security, we need to build bridges.

To know [John Quincy Adams] is not to love him. It is, however, to admire him greatly.

I have always been fond of the West African proverb: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far,'

As governor general of the Philippines, Taft had welcomed every political group at Malacañan Palace, making it "a rule never to pay any attention to personal squabbles and differences.

A true leader is a man who can get people to work together on the points on which they agree and who can persuade others that when they disagree there are peaceful methods to settle their differences.

Wherever a tension needed the solvent of good-will, or friction the oil of benevolence; wherever suspicion needed the antidote of frankness, or wounded pride the disinfectant of a hearty laugh—there Taft was sent.

no one knew better than Lincoln that words have consequences. In a world of tinder, he was determined to hold his rhetorical gifts in abeyance in order to reach across factions and avoid a single spark that could set loose an avoidable conflagration.