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Diplomacy Quotes
"American presidents always avoid shaking hands with brutal dictators, except when it's advantageous to do so."
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"When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home."
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"Trotsky rises to give me his hand, then sits at his desk, gently allowing his regard to light on my person."
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"If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner."
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"The only summit meeting that can succeed is the one that does not take place."
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"I'm a junkie. I like drugs, I like the whole lifestyle, but it just didn't pay off."
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"Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop."
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"Widowhood had done nothing to curb my smart mouth. So much for diplomacy."
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"Voices were heard from the United States of America which made it clear that America wanted a peaceful and united Europe as a basis for mutual cooperation."
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"This is the devilish thing about foreign affairs: they are foreign and will not always conform to our whim."
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"A peace talk is always difficult, always complicated."
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"(A Foreign Secretary) is forever poised between the cliche and the indiscretion."
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"He is forever poised between a cliche and an indiscretion."
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"It's proper and appropriate to remind the Chinese about what they get out of solid relations with the United States."
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"Many hard comments have been made on my efforts in India from the side of the Congress party, yet I feel content in the deep conviction that the offer I traveled 22,000 miles to discuss with Indian leaders was a real contribution to a solution of our differences."
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"We are hopeful that the North Koreans can show a little bit more realism, a little bit more flexibility."
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"In the world of diplomacy, some things are better left unsaid."
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"For too long, Japan has been dragging its feet as it ignores the steps the U.S. has made to ensure a safe beef supply and shows a disregard for our prior trade pacts."
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"Peace: in international affairs a period of cheating between two periods of fighting."
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"I think there is a good deal of promise in those discussions as well. I think there is a range of matters that might be discussed between NATO and Russia that can provide a mechanism for talking through these issues, a way to give reassurance on these issues."
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"Diplomacy is not an end in itself if it does not advance U.S. interests."
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"In Europe it is particularly important that we build good relations to everyone who holds political responsibility because Europe can only be build together."
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"Like Prince von Bismarck in diplomacy, I have no secrets."
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"This is the very devilish thing about foreign affairs: they are foreign and will not always conform to our whim."
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"Again, I think we have much greater diplomatic weight by having all of us sit on the same side of the table wanting the same thing, and putting it to the North Koreans."
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"Japan is dealing us a dead hand. For two years we have watched the Japanese drag their feet and we can't let them continue to slam the door in our faces."
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"Diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest things in the nicest way."
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"They enlarged the domains of commerce by treaties with all nations, upon the great principle of equal justice to all nations, and special favors to none."
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"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."
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"Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity."
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"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent."
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"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations...entangling alliances with none."
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"Remember these, Sons! Truth presented with tenderness enriches the soul of man and enhances humanity in the process. A Franco-Cameroonian relation based on truth and nurtured with tenderness will be to the benefit not only of Kamerun and France, but also of mankind as a whole."
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"British diplomats and Anglo-American types in Washington have a near-superstitious prohibition on uttering the words 'Special Relationship' to describe relations between Britain and America, lest the specialness itself vanish like a phantom at cock-crow."
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