Quotes About Diplomacy

People say, 'Oh, you don't like China?' No, I love them. But their leaders are much smarter than our leaders, and we can't sustain ourself with that.

There is nothing that I'd love to do more than negotiate with Palestinians. This is my desire. This is my dream. This is my mission.

The simplest solution is an immediate cessation of all hostilities between you and the League of Nobles," Vidad said to Omnius. "You keep your Synchronized Worlds, and the free humans keep their League Worlds. In exchange, the mutual aggression ends. There will be no further deaths, no further violence between machine and man.

The whole point of having enemies abroad is getting to ignore the once back home.

War tends to make us all students of diplomacy, does it not? There is a story that Napoléon once told the widow of the Marquis de Condorcet that he detested women who meddled in politics. Do you know her reply?' Sebastian shook his head. 'She said, "You are right, of course, General. But in a country where one cuts off women's heads, it is natural that they should wish to know the reason why.

For me, the most ironic token of [the first human moon landing] is the plaque signed by President Richard M. Nixon that Apollo 11 took to the moon. It reads: We came in peace for all Mankind. As the United States was dropping 7 ½ megatons of conventional explosives on small nations in Southeast Asia, we congratulated ourselves on our humanity. We would harm no one on a lifeless rock.

With an ambassador, you're supposed to put your best foot forward, and we've been sending mainly crap to space for forty years.

Why is the half of humanity with a special sensitivity to the preciousness of life, the half untainted by testosterone poisoning, almost wholly unrepresented in defense establishments and peace negotiations worldwide? [blurb on Daniella Gioseffi's _Women on War_; quoted in Carol Lynn Pearson's _The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy_]

When you insist someone submit to your will, it is accomplished most easily if you give them a small victory so they can retain their dignity while they do as you insist. ~ Kahlan Mother Confessor

It struck Magda as ironic that those who professed to want peace the most were quickest to use bloodshed to try to get their way.

Knowing when not to fight is just as important as knowing how.

Well, he thought, so this is diplomacy. It's lying, only for a better class of people.

Stopping a battle is much harder than starting it. Starting it only requires you to shout 'Attack!' but when you want to stop it, everyone is busy.

Do you need an excuse to have a war? I mean, who for? Can't you just say You got lots of cash and land, but I've got a big sword, so divvy up right now, chop chop.

Gentlemen, please," said the Patrician. He shook his head. "Let's have no fighting, please. This is, after all, a council of war.

Vetinari gave him a look that did not actually employ a raised eyebrow but which implied that one might be forthcoming if the recipient of the look pushed his luck.

If you would seek war, prepare for war.'" "I believe, my lord, the saying is 'If you would seek peace, prepare for war,'" Leonard ventured. Vetinari put his head on one side and his lips moved as he repeated the phrase to himself. Finally he said, "No, no. I just don't see that one at all.

You had to stop discussing politics or you would run right into it, causing no damage to anything but yourself.

That's how it goes. Meetings in rooms. A little diplomacy, a little give and take, a promise here, an understanding there. That's how real revolutions happen.

But we might go to war to keep some damn island that's only useful in case we have to go to war, right?

You are all vinegar, my dear Helen. I believe in the judicious application of honey.

Preventing war is much better than protesting against the war. Protesting the war is too late.

I think most Americans understand that we went through a period in which American leadership was judged quite critically internationally.

Ecuador has about 700 kilometers of border with Colombia, and a lot of it is impenetrable jungle.