Quotes About Diplomacy

One hopes to achieve the zero option, but in the absence of that we must achieve balanced numbers. (On Soviet and Allied missiles in Europe)

You don't tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.

What may seem like a reasonable way of protecting oneself can look very different from the other side of the border.

The delegates to the peace conference after World War I "tried to impose a rational order on an irrational world.

The failure of the talks between Chamberlain and the German ambassador in London, the public and private outbursts of the Kaiser, the well-reported anti-British and pro-Boer sentiment among the German public, even the silly controversy over whether Chamberlain had insulted the Prussian army, all left their residue of mistrust and resentments in Britain as well as in Germany.

The French would do whatever it took to get Britain to commit itself. In 1909 they produced a carefully faked document, said to have been discovered when a French commercial traveler picked up the wrong bag on a train, which purported to show Germany's invasion plans for Britain.

The United States has the power to destroy the world, but not the power to save it alone.

Diplomats make it their business to conceal the facts.

A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us.

I like Mr. Gorbachev, we can do business together.

It pays to know the enemy - not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.

The whole world's safety depends on the words of two men who are enemies.

How long will it be until the two countries I love forgive each other and move on . . . I'm not even sure what there is to forgive. Something about Cuba seizing ownership of oil refineries. It's all so confusing. Why should something as ugly as oil affect friendships between nations?

Preventing war is the work of politicians, establishing peace is the work of educationists.

Many people feel that playing the political game involves devious plotting or blatant self-promotion. But in reality, "politics" is what naturally happens whenever people with different goals, interests, and personalities try to work together.

The surest way to prevent war is not to fear it.

Every nation has to either be with us or against us. Those who harbor terrorists or who finance them, uh, are going to pay a price.

Would food be considered an instrument of national power? ... Is the U.S. prepared to accept food rationing to help people who can't/won't control their population growth?

Food is a tool. It is a weapon in the U.S. negotiating kit

The implication of game theory, which is also the implication of the third image, is, however, that the freedom of choice of any one state is limited by the actions of the others.

America is a friend of freedom everywhere, but a custodian only of our own.

Where freedom is menaced or justice threatened or where aggression takes place, we cannot be and shall not be neutral.

Without freedom you cannot have real peace.

President Obama is currently on a week-long trip to Africa, where he will promote freedom, democracy, and economic opportunity. I guess he figured it hasn't worked here - so try it somewhere else.