Diplomacy Quotes

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.

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.

Christopher Hitchens

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.

English Proverb

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

William Hazlitt

Tact is the intelligence of the heart.

Anonymous

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.

Charles de Gaulle

A distinguished diplomat could hold his tongue in ten languages.

Anonymous

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 thing. But if he have been found gossipy and contumacious in the time of his sojourn as guest not only ought he not be joined to the body of the monastery but also it shall be said to him honestly that he must depart. If he does not go let two stout monks in the name of God explain the matter to him.

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.

Anonymous

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

Anonymous

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

Anonymous

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

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

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 opponents.

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.

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

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

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.

Nilantha Ilangamuwa

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 sure to praise you when next I speak to the lord general. But for now I think there is no need to worry.

Mette Ivie Harrison

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

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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

George F. Kennan

Mounting tensions in Eastern Europe send shivers down the spine. Barely a quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War we seem to be sliding inexorably towards another.

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. Not recognizing this principle is shortsighted (no disrespect intended to the fine people of Nauru).

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.

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

Robert Wesley Miller

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.

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.

Aberjhani

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Stephen Hawking

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

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord

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

Marquis de Sade

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.

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

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

Michael Benzehabe

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

Richelle E. Goodrich

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

Christopher Nutall

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.

Barbara Kingsolver

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.

Sam Wazan

Remember, there is no peace without peaceful exchange.

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.

Henry Kissinger

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

Lazarus Takawira

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

Nilantha Ilangamuwa

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

Nilantha Ilangamuwa

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.

Nilantha Ilangamuwa

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

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.

Henry Kissinger

Diplomacy and virtue do not make easy companions.

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?

Nilantha Ilangamuwa

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

1. Bangladesh.... In 1971 ... Kissinger overrode all advice in order to support the Pakistani generals in both their civilian massacre policy in East Bengal and their armed attack on India from West Pakistan.... This led to a moral and political catastrophe the effects of which are still sorely felt. Kissinger’s undisclosed reason for the ‘tilt’ was the supposed but never materialised ‘brokerage’ offered by the dictator Yahya Khan in the course of secret diplomacy between Nixon and China.... Of the new state of Bangladesh, Kissinger remarked coldly that it was ‘a basket case’ before turning his unsolicited expertise elsewhere.2. Chile.... Kissinger had direct personal knowledge of the CIA’s plan to kidnap and murder General René Schneider, the head of the Chilean Armed Forces ... who refused to countenance military intervention in politics. In his hatred for the Allende Government, Kissinger even outdid Richard Helms ... who warned him that a coup in such a stable democracy would be hard to procure. The murder of Schneider nonetheless went ahead, at Kissinger’s urging and with American financing, just between Allende’s election and his confirmation.... This was one of the relatively few times that Mr Kissinger (his success in getting people to call him ‘Doctor’ is greater than that of most PhDs) involved himself in the assassination of a single named individual rather than the slaughter of anonymous thousands. His jocular remark on this occasion—‘I don’t see why we have to let a country go Marxist just because its people are irresponsible’—suggests he may have been having the best of times....3. Cyprus.... Kissinger approved of the preparations by Greek Cypriot fascists for the murder of President Makarios, and sanctioned the coup which tried to extend the rule of the Athens junta (a favoured client of his) to the island. When despite great waste of life this coup failed in its objective, which was also Kissinger’s, of enforced partition, Kissinger promiscuously switched sides to support an even bloodier intervention by Turkey. Thomas Boyatt ... went to Kissinger in advance of the anti-Makarios putsch and warned him that it could lead to a civil war. ‘Spare me the civics lecture,’ replied Kissinger, who as you can readily see had an aphorism for all occa

Christopher Hitchens

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