Quotes About Diplomacy

In diplomacy, as in life itself, one often learns more from failures than from successes. Triumphs will seem, in retrospect, to be foreordained, a series of brilliant actions and decisions that may in fact have been lucky or inadvertent, whereas failures illuminate paths and pitfalls to be avoided.

Tell ya the man's got a private line t'Moscow," he said. "A few men like that in office and we're in for it, take my word.

Food is also the stuff of international politics, and the power of one country to control the daily bread of another has always been politically important.

The matter should continue to be regarded as of the utmost secrecy; but when a "bomb" is finally available, it might perhaps, after mature consideration, be used against the Japanese, who should be warned that this bombardment will be repeated until they surrender.

Within three years, a Russian diplomat in Saint Petersburg who was an amateur experimenter, Baron Pavel L'vovitch Schilling, had begun designing a telegraph system based on Oersted's discoveries. Schilling demonstrated the system to Czar Alexander I sometime before the Czar's death in 1825.

He chose not to work through the limited official channels that the Army and the OSRD had devised to constrict the flow of information. "I wanted to let Oppenheimer know what we were doing. Someone in the Bureau of Ships knew one of the people in the [Navy] Bureau of Ordnance who was going out to Los Alamos. I remember that I met the man at the old Warner Theater here in Washington, up in the balcony—real cloak and dagger stuff.

Perhaps the greatest immediate danger which faces us is the probability that our 'demonstration' of atomic bombs will precipitate a race in the production of these devices between the United States and Russia.

You weren't able to talk sense into him? Well, we kind of tried to kill each other in a duel to the death. I see. You tried the diplomatic approach.

Frankness is not a license to say anything you want, wherever and whenever you want. It is not rudeness.

You are never persuasive when you're abrasive.

Imagine if you were asked by your country to be an ambassador to an enemy nation. You would probably have to learn a new language and adapt to some customs and cultural differences in order to be polite and accomplish your mission. As an ambassador you would not be able to isolate yourself from the enemy. To fulfill your mission, you would have to have contact and relate to them.

Never let it be said that I could not talk my way out of any trouble that I could not punch.

Who knows what will come when quick-tongued men make ancient grievances rhyme with fresh desire for land and conquest?

In every country, those who were against war had been overruled. The Austrians had attacked Serbia when they might have held back; the Russians had mobilized instead of negotiating; the Germans had refused to attend an international conference to settle the issue; the French had been offered the chance to remain neutral and had spurned it; and now the British were about to join in when they might easily have remained on the sidelines.

When you're about to be turned down, go for a postponement.

Any fool can get into a fight, but a wise man knows how to stay out of them.

With faultless good manners they would lead the world to destruction.

people who were polite to his mistress. Lloyd George spoke to the group. "That German ship delivered the guns to Mexico after all. It simply went to another port and quietly unloaded. So nineteen American troops died for nothing. It's a terrible humiliation for Woodrow Wilson.

As in every country, Walter thought gloomily, army officers were pressing their political masters to take the first steps to war. It

We move by inches, not miles," said Gus Dewar with a smile. "That's politics.

Boy did not see why two great nations such as England and Germany should go to war over a half-barbaric wasteland such as Poland.

If you want to change the world, then foreign relations is the field in which you can do the most good – or evil.

Like all diplomats, Walter hated it when monarchs talked directly to each other, instead of through their ministers. Anything could happen then.

International politics is like a glass. Aggressive moves by either side pour water in. The overflow is war." Dimka