Quotes by Diplomats

The world became more aware that America-despite being the hope of many who have the personal drive and ambition to become part of the "American dream"-is beset by serious operational challenges: a massive and growing national debt, widening social inequality, a cornucopian culture that worships materialism, a financial system given to greedy speculation, and a polarized political system
Zbigniew Brzeziński
The ongoing changes in the distribution of global power and mounting global strife make it all the more imperative that America not retreat into an ignorant garrison-state mentality or wallow in self-righteous cultural hedonism
Zbigniew Brzeziński
China is constantly reinventing itself and so is the United States.
Patrick Mendis
Unlike Saudi Arabia, Russia, and China, the United States was created by an enlightened band of Founding Fathers with a global vision for the new republic.
Patrick Mendis
While I'm writing, I'm far away;and when I come back, I've gone.
Pablo Neruda
My book, Ambassador Book one: how to take on the world and win will help to illuminate many of the obstacles that we all must face in order to succeed. You are invited on a journey of personal discovery.
Ken Taylor
Truth forever on the scaffold wrong forever on the throne.
James Russell Lowell
I am always at a loss to know how much to believe of my own stories.
Washington Irving
I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.
Henry Kissinger
This was the penn'worth of his thought.
Nicholas Murray Butler
There could be no honor in a sure success but much might be wrested from a sure defeat.
T.E. Lawrence
The misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never happen.
James Russell Lowell
No man is born into the world whose work Is not born with him there is always work And tools to work withal for those who will And blessed are the horny hands of toil!
James Russell Lowell
A task becomes a duty from the moment you suspect it to be an essential part of that integrity which alone entitles a man to assume responsibility.
Dag Hammarskjöld
Earth's noblest thing a Woman perfected.
James Russell Lowell
The more underdeveloped the country the more overdeveloped the women.
J. K. Galbraith
There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.
Washington Irving
Ah men do not know how much strength is in poise That he goes the farthest who goes far enough.
James Russell Lowell
The question of commonsense is always "what is it good for?" - a question which would abolish the rose and be answered triumphantly by the cabbage.
James Russell Lowell
Where the willingness is great the difficulties cannot be great.
Niccolò Machiavelli
Men are always wicked at bottom unless they are made good by some compulsion.
Niccolò Machiavelli
Ez for war I call it murder - There you hev it plain and flat I don't want to go no furder Than my Testyment for that.
James Russell Lowell
Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.
Otto von Bismarck
(The great questions of the day) are not decided by speeches and majority votes but by blood and iron.
Otto von Bismarck
The world will never have lasting peace so long as men reserve for war the finest human qualities.
John Foster Dulles
It would indeed be a tragedy if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump.
David Ormsby Gore
A conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if it does not lose.
Henry Kissinger
Is life so wretched? Isn't it rather your hands which are too small your vision which is muddled? You are the one who must grow up.
Dag Hammarskjöld
Make-believe colors the past with innocent distortion and it swirls ahead of us in a thousand ways-in science in politics in every bold intention. It is part of our collective lives entwining our past and our future ... a particularly rewarding aspect of life itself.
Shirley Temple Black
I think at a child's birth if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift that gift should be curiosity.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Truth forever on the scaffold. Wrong forever on the throne.
James Russell Lowell
Here's to your good health and your family's good health and may you all live long and prosper.
Washington Irving
In life's small things be resolute and great To keep thy muscle trained Know'st thou when Fate Thy measure takes or when she'll say to thee "I find thee worthy do this deed for me?"
James Russell Lowell
You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to give.
Eleanor Roosevelt
All that I have accomplished ... has been by that plodding patient persevering process of accretion which builds the ant heap particle by particle thought by thought fact by fact.
Elihu Burritt
Time goes by: reputation increases ability declines.
Dag Hammarskjöld
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide. ... And the choice goes by forever t'wixt that darkness and that light.
James Russell Lowell
Take a winter as you find him and he turns out to be a thoroughly honest fellow with no nonsense in him: and tolerating none in you which is a great comfort in the long run.
James Russell Lowell
May is a pious fraud of the almanac A ghastly parody of real Spring Shaped out of snow and breathed with eastern wind.
James Russell Lowell
Had I been chosen president again I am certain I could not have lived another year.
John Adams
The four most miserable years of my life . . .
John Adams
The present moment is significant not as the bridge between past and future but by reason of its contents which can fill our emptiness and become ours if we are capable of receiving them
Dag Hammarskjöld
The past is the best way to suppose what may come.
Lord Halifax
I demolish my bridges behind me ... then there is no choice but forward.
Firdtjof Nansen
Nostalgia is a seductive liar.
George W. Ball
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt
I forgot they were talking about me. They sound so wonderfully convincing.
Jean Giraudoux
First he wrought and afterwards he taught.
Geoffrey Chaucer
In general those who nothing have to say Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it.
James Russell Lowell
An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country.
Henry Wotton
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people they think it's their fault.
Henry Kissinger
Granting our wish is one of Fate's saddest jokes.
James Russell Lowell
The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.
Henry Kissinger
Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
John Quincy Adams
What isn't tried won't work.
Claude McDonald
Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and of true progress.
Nicholas Murray Butler
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation hard work learning from failure.
General Colin L. Powell
I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.
Shirley Temple
The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room each believing himself in mortal peril from the other whom he assumes to have perfect vision.
Henry Kissinger
Montesquieu had the style of a genius Buffon the genius of style.
Baron Grimm