Quotes about diplomacy

Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting but never hit soft!

Speak softly and carry a big stick you will go far.

Be a craftsman in speech that thou mayest be strong, for the strength of one is the tongue, and speech is mightier than all fighting.

I observe and remain silent.

As life in general constituted much pain in the form of struggles against poverty, disease, ignorance, and emotional anguish, what more civilized way for people to alleviate the same than by giving themselves to one another as brothers and sisters in deed as well as in word? A society of people hoping to become politically superior needed first to become spiritually valid.

Truth without love is brutality, and love without truth is hypocrisy.

If you need something from somebody always give that person a way to hand it to you.

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

The school remained open. I thanked Allah that the Americans operated differently. Had the Lebanese lost 241 men in one day, and had we the power and the reach, we would have American males hung from their testicles and set on fire. The frame of mind that dictates our actions quashes our ability to develop the power and reach exhibited by the Americans, I thought.

Remember, there is no peace without peaceful exchange.

To stomp about the world ignoring cultural differences is arrogant, to be sure, but perhaps there is another kind of arrogance in the presumption that we may ever really build a faultless bridge from one shore to another, or even know where the mist has ceded to landfall.

Diplomacy and virtue do not make easy companions.

The bargaining position of the victor always diminishes with time. Whatever is not exacted during the shock of defeat becomes increasingly difficult to attain later.

I would rather contend with an honest asshole than a duplicitous diplomat.

Nothing can be changed in the system when the system itself is revolting against those who opposed violence.

How can you cry for others’ struggles when you are facilitating mayhem in your own land?

The most fundamental problem is not that we don’t have a system to run but those with knowledge are cynically manipulating the system for petty personal desires.

Diplomacy in leadership is winning the war on behalf of both sides

A turbulent history has taught Chinese leaders that not every problem has a solution and that too great an emphasis on total mastery over specific events could upset the harmony of the universe.

It shocked his sense of dramatic economy that they should have to resort to violence when the same result could have been obtained by a minimum expenditure of energy.

But it doesn't take a thousand men to open a door, my lord.""It might to keep it open.

History is littered with the wars everybody knew could never happen.

The Chilcot report is a revelation of injustice under the cloak of Aid. The Chilcot report is a sorry report on the current state of humanity. So the ultimate question here is – what are we going to achieve out of the sorry reports when “sorry” has no meaning in action?

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

A civilian-based diplomacy supports noncommercial, nonprofit, and publicly-subsidized media to counteract the corporate-controlled, for-profit, private media that dominate political discourse; and works to place media control, ownership, and lobbying at the center of public policy debate.

The sea is a lonely and hostile place, Captain,' Jansen said coldly. 'It is always best not to make enemies of those who might be your friends. You never know when your ships may cross

I think there is a substantial difference between hypocrisy and diplomacy: hypocrisy is not saying things, diplomacy is knowing how to say things.

Your name?" George asked him directly. He had probably seen the man a dozen times before yet did not know anything about him. King Davit would have no doubt have known half the man's history already."Henry."George took Henry's hand firmly in his own and looked into his eyes. This had to be done delicately, to make sure this Henry did not think him a fool. He tried to think of how his father would do it."Thank you, Henry, for your concern. It is a comfort to know I am so well guarded. I will make

The mentality of being the super power globally or regionally has contributed strongly to the development of very negative aspects to the political cohabitation the countries of the region than proving the capability of producing solutions that would meet the needs of the public.

But people misunderstand warfare and think it is an end unto itself. But on the international stage, war is nothing more than another tool of diplomacy. If your country doesn’t have a credible, powerful military force capable of bringing pain, death, and destruction to an enemy, then your diplomats can’t get much done, because you simply aren’t powerful—there’s no threat of pain they can wield. That’s why the western Pacific island nation of Nauru doesn’t have a seat on the UN Security Council.

You have no idea how much it contributes to the general politeness and pleasantness of diplomacy when you have a little quiet armed force in the background

The Communist leaders respect only firmness and have contempt for persons who continually give in to them.

IF you draw a line in the sand you betray the loyalty of your cause

You're in America now," I said. "Our idea of diplomacy is showing up with a gun in one hand and a sandwich in the other and asking which you'd prefer.

The other Dons in the room applauded and rose to shake hands with everybody in sight and to congratulate Don Corleone and Don Tattaglia on their new friendship. It was not perhaps the warmest friendship in the world, they would not send each other Christmas gift greetings, but they would not murder each other. That was friendship enough in this world, all that was needed.

Try to be pleasant to one another, get plenty of fresh air, read a good book now and then, depose your government when it suspends the free press, try to use the mechanism of the state to adjudicate fairly and employ diplomatic means wherever possible to avoid armed conflict.

A diplomat who says “yes” means “maybe", a diplomat who says “maybe" means “no”, and a diplomat who says “no” is no diplomat.

Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn’t have to be like this.

Conversation, like certain portions of the anatomy, always runs more smoothly when lubricated.

Somebody must trespass on the taboos of modern nationalism, in the interests of human reason. Business can't. Diplomacy won't. It has to be people like us.

That’s the key to walking through the Wall.... You have to first see it as not being a Wall, even though everyone you know still sees it as a Wall.

the very least we can live with is an agreement that does not reduce us to slaves of imposition, but makes us partners of consent. Yes, we are compelled to make peace, we submit to force majeure, but leave us at least a piece of clothing to cover our nudity. This is the motivation behind every formula of diplomatic contrivance that is sometimes described as face-saving, and wise indeed is the victor who knows that, in order to shield his own rear from the elements, he must not denude his opponen

In the movies you get even; in life, diplomacy is best.

A timid question will always receive a confident answer.

"Let us agree not to step on each other's feet " said the cock to the horse.

If a person has no delicacy he has you in his power.

Tact is the intelligence of the heart.

Silence is not always tact and it is tact that is golden not silence.

Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.

A distinguished diplomat could hold his tongue in ten languages.

Negotiation in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.

Diplomacy the art of saying 'nice doggie' till you can find a rock.

If any pilgrim monk come from distant parts with wish as a guest to dwell in the monastery and will be content with the customs which he finds in the place and does not perchance by his lavishness disturb the monastery but is simply content with what he finds he shall be received for as long as he desires. If indeed he find fault with anything or expose it reasonably and with the humility of charity the Abbott shall discuss it prudently lest perchance God had sent him for this very th

An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.

A diplomat is a man who remembers a lady's birthday but forgets her age.

When a diplomat says yes he means perhaps when he says perhaps he means no when he says no he is no diplomat.

I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I speak the truth and they never believe me.

Diplomacy is to do and say The nastiest thing in the nicest way.

The French, it seems to me, strike a happy balance between intimacy and reserve. Some of this must be helped by the language, which lends itself to graceful expression even when dealing with fairly basic subjects.... And there's that famously elegant subtitle from a classic Western.COWBOY: "Gimme a shot of red-eye."SUBTITLE: "Un Dubonnet, s'il vous plait."No wonder French was the language of diplomacy for all those years.

War is failure of diplomacy.

Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week.

To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.

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.

By the time the Freedom Flights, to use the US description, came to an end, more than 260,000 Cubans had been airlifted to the United States, every one of them registered by the Swiss before they left Cuba.

The soft power of science has the potential to reshape global diplomacy.

For many years, Myanmar's leadership was largely shut out from the world of international diplomacy.

One of my goals upon becoming Secretary of State was to take diplomacy out of capitals, out of government offices, into the media, into the streets of countries.

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

New kinds of heroics need to be celebrated - like love, thoughtfulness, forgiveness, diplomacy - or we're not going to get there.

The anchors of the Arab consensus have long been Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and both are now weakened forces in Arab politics and diplomacy.

Diplomacy, n. is the art of letting somebody else have your way.

Diplomacy is so weak and prosaic. Diplomacy must never become an end, itself. Facts are so much more important in science. Yet, I'm beginning to appreciate the value of a soft word and a smile. --Unassimilated pg 294

Kindness solves more problems than diplomacy, wealth, intelligence, clout, force, law, and dominion combined.

Diplomacy is the art of getting what you want without offending anyone too badly.

Before the thunderous clamor of political debate or war set loose in the world, love insisted on its promise for the possibility of human unity: between men and women, between blacks and whites, northerners and southerners, haves and have-have-nots, self and self.

You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force you can get a lot more done.

Eastward and westward storms are breaking,--great, ugly whirlwinds of hatred and blood and cruelty. I will not believe them inevitable.

Where are Haldad my father, and Haldad my brother? If the king of Doriath fears a friendship between Haleth and those who have devoured her kin, then the ways of the Eldar are strange to Men.

People who keep their feelings to themselves tend not to know, after a while, what their feelings are.