Diplomacy Quotes

I think that war is diplomacy. There have been wars that have been fought for righteous reasons and there are wars that have had to be fought. Indeed, there will continue to be. ~ Stephen Lang

In a reality, what we should be doing is having quiet diplomacy with the Russians to convince them that it's in their self-interest to have a more stable Middle East because trade enriches us all. ~ Rand Paul

Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way. ~ Daniele Vare

Louella remarked that when foreign nations had intercourse with this country they knew they had been intercoursed. ~ Jack Woodford

One thing is certain, however; whereas it has been almost commonplace among historians to attribute Adams's opposition to Franklin's style of diplomacy to simple jealousy, in fact Adams also was critical of his fellow envoy because of a genuine concern that America might be ruined by anything less than a wary, coequal, unbending relationship with its new ally.38 ~ John Ferling

Our dependence on foreign energy sources is our Achilles heel, not just in the realm of diplomacy, but in terms of our future as the world's economic leader. ~ Judy Biggert

Looked at objectively, it is clear that the overwhelming majority of civilian deaths resulting from political violence are produced by what should be understood as "state terror." Terrorism also serves as an excuse to avoid diplomacy and the peaceful resolution of conflict. ~ Richard A. Falk

Sometimes war is necessary to teach us the value of peace. Sometimes you need to learn the real value of diplomacy in avoiding war. And I'd rather my students learned those lessons on the playground than on the battlefield. ~ Neil Gaiman

Diplomacy should always be the first option, and every mission should have a clear, achievable objective that is in the interests of the United States. ~ Mike Thompson

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. ~ Ptahhotep

Immature people falling in love destroy each other's freedom, create a bondage, make a prison. Mature persons in love help each other to be free; they help each other to destroy all sorts of bondages. And when love flows with freedom there is beauty. When love flows with dependence there is ugliness.

A mature person does not fall in love, he or she rises in love. Only immature people fall; they stumble and fall down in love. Somehow they were managing and standing. Now they cannot manage and they cannot stand. They were always ready to fall on the ground and to creep. They don't have the backbone, the spine; they don't have the integrity to stand alone.

A mature person has the integrity to stand alone. And when a mature person gives love, he or she gives without any strings attached to it. When two mature persons are in love, one of the great paradoxes of life happens, one of the most beautiful phenomena: they are together and yet tremendously alone. They are together so much that they are almost one. Two mature persons in love help each other to become more free. There is no politics involved, no diplomacy, no effort to dominate. Only freedom and love. ~ Osho

All war represents a failure of diplomacy. ~ Tony Benn

Mother had the social restraint of an ambassador. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

War is the art of killing each other brutally, diplomacy is the art of killing each other softly. ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

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

I think that war is diplomacy by other means, for sure, and there have been wars that have been fought for righteous reasons. There are wars that have had to be fought, and there will probably continue to be. ~ Stephen Lang

Such was the end of Philip (II, king of Macedonia) ... He had ruled 24 years. He is known to fame as one who with but the slenderest resources to support his claim to a throne won for himself the greatest empire among the Hellenes (Greeks), while the growth of his position was not due so much to his prowess in arms as to his adroitness and cordiality in diplomacy. ~ Diodorus Siculus

In central banking as in diplomacy, style, conservative tailoring, and an easy association with the affluent count greatly and results far much less. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith

Agreements in the organizations of world power are never reached on the floor. They are made in the delegates' lounge and corridors long before the voting begins. ~ Carlos P. Romulo

The [Dow-Alcoa and Alcoa-IG] negotiations [of 1929] reveal strikingly the technique of cartel diplomacy - the steady application of "pressure" and the resort alternatively to challenges and blandishments. The similarity to power politics in which trial by battle is a last resort is marked. The procedure discloses the vast gulf between big business in practice and the patterns of behavior assumed in a regime of free competition. It shows how the conference table superseded the market as the arena for decision making. ~ George W. Stocking

My brothers are idiots.
Anyone can see that under the scars and the attitude, Isabeau is more fragile than she looks. And as a reclusive Hound princess, her first introduction to the royal family shouldn't be a dose of Hypnos and four idiots gawking at her.
If I'd managed not to gawk, they sure as hell could have. She was beautiful, fierce, and utterly unlike anyone I'd ever known.
It was really hard not to gawk.
Much better to pace outside her door with one of our Bouviers sitting at the top of the stairs watching me curiously.
"This sucks, Boudicca," I told her. "I don't think we inherited Dad's diplomacy."
She laid her chin on her paws. I could have sworn she rolled her eyes. ~ Alyxandra Harvey

You might not be ready for diplomacy with Beijing if you can't visit the Olympics without insulting our closest ally, ~ Barack Obama

My journalistic mission was straightforward: to await the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Nobody knew quite when this would be. But the diplomacy - the meetings in the U.N. security council, the allegations about weapons of mass destruction, the martial language of Tony Blair and George W. Bush - all suggested a war was brewing. ~ Luke Harding

Diplomacy is to do and say, the nastiest things in the nicest way. ~ Isaac Goldberg

Diplomacy matters. Burden-sharing matters. Follow-through matters. And yes, sustaining the peace is harder, more complex and often costlier than winning the war itself. No matter the surge of momentary machismo
as gratifying as it may be for some
it's short-sighted and wrong to simply go it alone. ~ Dick Gephardt

Diplomacy, if properly practiced, is not just talking for the sake of talking. ~ Condoleezza Rice

Military strategy...has become the diplomacy of violence. ~ Thomas C. Schelling

Contractions. Kane's stomach dropped right out of his body. He stared down at her, his mind going fuzzy. That was one of those words like menstruation, period, or female products . The list just wasn't uttered in male company. Contractions fit right in there. God. This was not happening. He forced his brain under control, ignoring the pounding in his head and the roaring in his ears.

He studied Rose's body carefully. She wasn't due for another four or five weeks, right? He knew when she got pregnant. When he'd first seen her, she had looked slim, but that had been an illusion. On the other hand, she never looked as - big - as she did at that moment."What?" Rose demanded, glaring up at him.

The warning signal flashed bright red in Kane's head. Telling a woman she was as big as a beach ball wouldn't win any points. How did one describe how she looked? A basketball? Volleyball? He studied her furious little face. Yeah. He was in trouble no matter what he said. Description was out of the question. He needed diplomacy, something that flew out the window when he was near her and she said words like contractions.He'd jump out of a plane without hesitation in the heart of enemy territory, but damn it all, ask him to kill someone, not deliver babies. She didn't take her eyes off him, and that expression on her scowling face demanded an answer. ~ Christine Feehan

He wouldn't even dance with Levana at the stupid ball if he could help it - to hell with diplomacy. ~ Marissa Meyer

Unfortunately, diplomacy was a dance I needed to learn. ~ Maria V. Snyder

Only professional diplomats, inveterate idiots and women view diplomacy as a long-term substitute for war. ~ David Mitchell

The blindness of bigotry, the madness of ambition, and the miscalculations of diplomacy seek their victims principally amongst the innocent and the unoffending. The cottage is sure to suffer for every error of the court, the cabinet, or the camp. When error sits in the seat of power and of authority, and is generated in high places, it may be compared to that torrent which originates indeed in the mountain, but commits its devastation in the vale. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

The one person who didn't seem enthusiastic about giving a speech in Berlin was Obama. When Favreau and I talked to him about it, he didn't offer much beyond suggesting we use Berlin's story to talk about what we were proposing in our own foreign policy. Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected a request from the campaign for the speech to take place at the Brandenburg Gate, where Reagan had called on Gorbachev to tear down the wall, saying that the venue should be reserved for an actual president. When he learned about this, Obama was embarrassed and annoyed. "I never said I wanted to give a speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate," he snapped. It spoke to a larger dynamic in the campaign: While Obama was often blamed for the cult of personality growing up around him - arty posters, celebrity anthems, and lavish settings for his events - he was rarely responsible for it, and worried that we were raising expectations too high in a world that has a way of resisting change.

"Before he left for Afghanistan, he read a draft of the speech and told us he was satisfied with it - "You could put this speech on the teleprompter and I'd be fine," he said - but I was hoping for more than that. I was hoping for edits that would elevate the speech and make it more than a summation of our worldview. The shift to a foreign audience hadn't been hard, as Obama's message about working across races "and religions, his preference for diplomacy over war, his embrace of the science of climate c ~ Ben Rhodes

A wise old man taught me that diplomacy is the velvet glove that cloaks the fist of power. Persuasion, not force, works best and lasts longest. ~ Robin Hobb

Diplomacy is the art of telling plain truths without giving offense. ~ Winston Churchill

There is nothing fast or easy about diplomacy. I have no illusions about that. ~ Hillary Clinton

If you face a delicate situation, don't go into it wearing your spurs or you'll rip it apart. Instead, dress for the occasion. Cloak yourself in diplomacy. Vest yourself in wisdom, and wear a smile. ~ Ann Thompson

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). ~ Jamie Smith

Page 134 Florence Nightengale is speaking to William Monk
Of course. If you know the truth, it takes a gentler and perhaps a wiser woman than Purdence Barrymore not to speak it aloud. She did not understand the arts of diplomacy. I fear that perhaps I do not either. The sick cannot wait for flattery and coercion to do their work. ~ Anne Perry

Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments. ~ Frederick The Great

I think anyone who comes upon a Nautilus machine suddenly will agree with me that its prototype was clearly invented at some time in history when torture was considered a reasonable alternative to diplomacy. ~ Anna Quindlen

Dictating to dictators doesn't work; they are congenitally delusional about their own indispensability. ~ Joe Klein

Kissinger traces the balances made in foreign policy, including that of realism and idealism, from the times of Cardinal Richelieu through chapters on Theodore Roosevelt the realist and Woodrow Wilson the idealist. Kissinger, a European refugee who has read Metternich more avidly than Jefferson, is unabashedly in the realist camp. "No other nation," he wrote in Diplomacy, "has ever rested its claim to international leadership on its altruism." Other Americans might proclaim this as a point of pride; when Kissinger says it, his attitude seems that of an anthropologist examining a rather unsettling tribal ritual. The practice of basing policy on ideals rather than interests, he pointed out, can make a nation seem dangerously unpredictable. ~ Walter Isaacson

Traditionally, diplomacy was done in an environment of information scarcity. Ambassadors would send back telegrams to foreign ministries, comfortable in the knowledge that their views of a country would be the only source of information the minister would see. ~ Douglas Alexander

He will spit you and roast you with rosemary, and we will all sample your flesh tonight. Tomorrow you will be shat out into the snow.
Your diplomacy is bold and edgy, sir. ~ Kevin Hearne

With a group of people, it's easer to say, I want this, this and this. It's different with the soloists, because they are the ones who will be in the spotlight. You can't force an interpretation on them. With soloists, it's all about diplomacy. ~ Laurence Equilbey

We've achieved this historic progress through diplomacy, without resorting to another war in the Middle East. I want to also point out that by working with Iran on this nuclear deal, we were better able to address other issues. ~ Barack Obama

The programs supported by the International Affairs Budget are as essential to our national security as defense programs. Development and diplomacy protect our nation by addressing the root causes of terrorism and conflict. But it's not just about security. By building new markets overseas for American products, the International Affairs Budget creates jobs and boosts the economy here at home. ~ Tom Ridge

The promotion of human rights cannot be about exhortation alone. At times, it must be coupled with painstaking diplomacy. I know that engagement with repressive regimes lacks the satisfying purity of indignation. But I also know that sanctions without outreach
condemnation without discussion
can carry forward only a crippling status quo. No repressive regime can move down a new path unless it has the choice of an open door. ~ Barack Obama

After reading Tolstoy's lengthy essay "On Life" in 1889, Ernest Crosby, a thirty-three-year-old American diplomat who was working in Egypt at the time, decided that diplomacy wasn't his calling and instead dedicated the next twenty-seven years of his life to writing and lecturing about Tolstoy throughout the United States. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Diplomacy, of course, is a subtle and nuanced craft, so much so that it's said that when the most wily diplomat of the nineteenth-century passed away, other diplomats asked, on reports of his death, What do you suppose the old fox meant by that? ~ Ronald Reagan

After two decades of reconstruction work, I want to work on projects that lay at the intersection of cultural diplomacy and national identity - ones that empower local communities to define progress, not have it sanctioned by others. ~ Cameron Sinclair

I think it's fair to say that diplomacy today requires much more of that if you're the United States of America than it did 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago. ~ Hillary Clinton

The upper hand is with those who are pushing regime change rather than those who are advocating more diplomacy. ~ Richard N. Haass

Ultimately, only diplomacy can bring about a durable solution to the challenge posed by Iran's nuclear program. As President and Commander in Chief, I will do what is necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. However, I have a profound responsibility to try to resolve our differences peacefully, rather than rush towards conflict. Today, we have a real opportunity to achieve a comprehensive, peaceful settlement, and I believe we must test it. ~ Barack Obama

Diplomacy is living in state. ~ Oliver Herford

Ah, the truth, what a thing it is! I sacrifice so much for it, with people: I forego, for truth's sake, discretion, loyalty, diplomacy, tact, polite manners, elegance, grace, poise, balance, good taste, conformity, image-role, fashionableness, polish, confidences, promises, ambition, consistency, identity, clarity, comprehensibleness, good will, hypocrisy, and lots of other things
amass sacrifice, at truth's altar. God! is truth worth it? I hope it is. It better be, in fact. ~ Marvin L. Cohen

Yes, attempts at murder are often misunderstandings. Unless it involves armies, in which case it's diplomacy. ~ Michelle Sagara

Our nation must engage with the rest of the world. But to be successful, we must listen. Our interaction with the world must be a conversation, not a monologue ... these exchanges are a strategic pillar of our nation's public diplomacy. ~ Dina Powell

Humor, humility, and, of course, honesty, all are qualities that work in public and cultural diplomacy. ~ Cynthia P. Schneider

It is very important for I think those of us who desperately want peace, who see war as, at some level, a break-down, a manifestation of human weakness, to understand that sometimes it's also necessary - and you know, to be able to balance two ideas at the same time; that we are constantly striving for peace, we are doubling up on our diplomacy, we are going to actively engage, we are going to try to see the world through other people's eyes and not just our own. ~ Barack Obama

Call me paranoid, but the shape the human hand makes when extending out for a handshake looks suspiciously like a karate chop. Maybe diplomacy, especially in DC, could use a little kung fu mixed in. ~ Jarod Kintz

She was the oddest combination of contradictions he'd ever met -innocence and sensuality, candour and diplomacy, anxiety and utter fearlessness. He hadn't even begun to figure out how her mind worked. But she was damn well going to live long enough for him to try. ~ Karen Chance

MINISTER, n. An agent of a higher power with a lower responsibility. In diplomacy, an officer sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign's hostility. ~ Ambrose Bierce

And we support Senator Joseph Lieberman, that it's time for our country to consider a military preemptive strike against Iran if they will not yield to diplomacy ~ John Hagee

Between people long-married there is a diplomacy of the eyes ~ Gregory Benford

On the other hand, she never looked as -big- as she did at that moment.
"What?" Rose demanded, glaring up at him.
The warning signal flashed bright red in Kane's head. Telling a woman she was as big as a beach ball wouldn't win any points. How did one describe how she looked? A basketball? Volleyball? He studied her furious little face. Yeah. He was in big trouble no matter what he said. Description was out of the question. He needed diplomacy, something that flew out of the window when he was near her and she said the words like contractions. ~ Christine Feehan

Oh, diplomacy," said M.D., in his element, "it mops up war's spillages; legitimizes its outcomes; gives the strong state the means to impose its will on a weaker one, while saving its fleets and battalions for weightier opponents. ~ David Mitchell

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. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

To say that the United States has pursued diplomacy with North Korea is a little bit misleading. It did under the Clinton administration, though neither side completely lived up to their obligations. Clinton didn't do what was promised, nor did North Korea, but they were making progress. ~ Noam Chomsky

Diplomacy is the police in grand costume. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Moody had no small genius for the art of diplomacy. As a child he had known instinctively that it was always better to tell a partial truth with a willing aspect than to tell a perfect truth in a defensive way. The appearance of cooperation was worth a great deal, if only because it forced a reciprocity, fair met with fair. ~ Eleanor Catton

WikiLeaks is the 9/11 of diplomacy. ~ Franco Frattini

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. ~ William M. Arkin

that international law produces a form of displaced politics or conducts politics in a different key. I call this juridified diplomacy (chapter 6): the phenomenon by which conflict about the purpose and shape of international political life (as well as specific disputes in this realm) is translated into legal doctrine or resolved in legal institutions. War crimes trials are one of the institutional manifestations of this phenomenon. ~ Gerry Simpson

The presidency of the United Nations was not thrust upon me overnight. I had to grow up to the measurements it demanded of a proponent of peace. This was done session by session, step by step. It entailed trips halfway around the world, again and again. It demanded nights without sleep, studying, writing, poring over documents; days without rest; and always the curb on the temper and the willingness to give and to receive. ~ Carlos P. Romulo

We are wanderers, place shifters, the cosmic homeless. This is not a modern truth, and Achilles is not some new kind of existentialist hero. It is the oldest truth of all, surviving uncomfortably into the modern world of cities and overkings, diplomacy and accommodation, the power structures and the proliferation of stuff which the Mediterranean world provides. ~ Adam Nicolson

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

How does MINDEF intend to reduce uncertainties, enhance understanding, and improve coordination in the region and beyond through defence diplomacy apart from conferences and meetings? ~ Low Thia Khiang

Diplomacy was like a card game. The difference was that you never really knew the value of the cards in your own hand. ~ Tom Clancy

Once war was considered the business of soldiers, international relations the concern of diplomats. But now that war has become seemingly total and seemingly permanent, the free sport of kings has become the forced and internecine business of people, and diplomatic codes of honor between nations have collapsed. Peace in no longer serious; only war is serious. Every man and every nation is either friend or foe, and the idea of enmity becomes mechanical, massive, and without genuine passion. When virtually all negotiation aimed at peaceful agreement is likely to be seen as 'appeasement,' if not treason, the active role of the diplomat becomes meaningless; for diplomacy becomes merely a prelude to war an interlude between wars, and in such a context the diplomat is replaced by the warlord. ~ C. Wright Mills

Were it possible so to accelerate the intercourse between every part of the globe that all its inhabitants could be united under the superintending authority of an ecumenical Council, how great a portion of human evils would be avoided. ~ James Madison

Diplomacy frequently consists in soothingly saying 'Nice doggie' until you have a chance to pick up a rock. ~ Walter Trumbull

My career was always about working with people, and understanding issues and problems and helping them to solve those issues and problems. How you deal with people - that's what diplomacy is all about. So while I'm not a career diplomat, many of the skills I had seemed to directly translate into the diplomatic arena. ~ John Roos

Diplomacy may very well be the art of manipulating secrets. What would any negotiation come to, were not there secrets to either share or withhold? ~ Robin Hobb

Why are you smiling?' Gargarin asked Froi, from across the balconette. 'When you're going to have to learn a lesson in diplomacy today and choose between the gardens of two women?'
Froi laughed, his chin resting on Quintana's head, his eyes taking in the joy of his son, despite the ridiculous cap that covered the babe's head. He looked across at Lirah and Arjuro and Rafuel, and then back to Gargarin who was smiling himself, because he knew the answer to his own question.
'Because today, I think I'm leaning on the side of wonder. ~ Melina Marchetta

I would love to see no more ghettos but the things is, there's no diplomacy in the ghetto. They want to tell you something, they tell you straight! ~ Jimmy Cliff

I--buy, and I sell."
"You're a thief. ~ Tamora Pierce

For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible - and no one can now doubt the word of America. ~ George W. Bush

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

A NATION'S GREATNESS DEPENDS ON ITS LEADER

To vastly improve your country and truly make it great again, start by choosing a better leader. Do not let the media or the establishment make you pick from the people they choose, but instead choose from those they do not pick. Pick a leader from among the people who is heart-driven, one who identifies with the common man on the street and understands what the country needs on every level. Do not pick a leader who is only money-driven and does not understand or identify with the common man, but only what corporations need on every level.

Pick a peacemaker. One who unites, not divides. A cultured leader who supports the arts and true freedom of speech, not censorship. Pick a leader who will not only bail out banks and airlines, but also families from losing their homes -- or jobs due to their companies moving to other countries. Pick a leader who will fund schools, not limit spending on education and allow libraries to close. Pick a leader who chooses diplomacy over war. An honest broker in foreign relations. A leader with integrity, one who says what they mean, keeps their word and does not lie to their people. Pick a leader who is strong and confident, yet humble. Intelligent, but not sly. A leader who encourages diversity, not racism. One who understands the needs of the farmer, the teacher, the doctor, and the environmentalist -- not only the banker, the oil tycoon, the weapons developer, or the insurance a ~ Suzy Kassem

Believe it or not, entertainment is part of our American diplomacy, it is part of what makes us exceptional, part of what makes us such a world power. Hundreds of millions of people may never set foot in the United States, but thanks to you, they've experienced a small part of what makes our country special. They've learned something about our values. We have shaped a world culture through you ... in a way that has made the world better. ~ Barack Obama

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

The United States tried, by depressing the clutch of diplomacy and downshifting the gearshift lever of rhetoric, to remain neutral, but it became increasingly obvious that the nation was going to get into a war, especially since it was almost 1812. ~ Dave Barry

I think all of our experience with (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein teaches us that diplomacy has very little chance of working unless it is clear to him that if diplomacy does not work, that the threatened reality of force is there,. ~ Tony Blair

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. ~ Aberjhani

The idea of humanity becomes more and more of a power in the civilized world, and, owing to the expansion and increasing speed of means of communication, and also owing to the influence, still more material than moral, of civilization upon barbarous peoples, this idea of humanity begins to take hold even of the minds of uncivilized nations. This idea is the invisible power of our century, with which the present powers - the States - must reckon. They cannot submit to it of their own free will because such submission on their part would be equivalent to suicide, since the triumph of humanity can be realized only through the destruction of the States. But the States can no longer deny this idea nor openly rebel against it, for having now grown too strong, it may finally destroy them.

In the face of this fainful alternative there remains only one way out: and that is hypocrisy. The States pay their outward respects to this idea of humanity; they speak and apparently act only in the name of it, but they violate it every day. This, however, should not be held against the States. They cannot act otherwise, their position having become such that they can hold their own only by lying. Diplomacy has no other mission.

Therefore what do we see? Every time a State wants to declare war upon another State, it starts off by launching a manifesto addressed not only to its own subjects but to the whole world. In this manifesto it declares that right and justice are o ~ Mikhail Bakunin

Try to look at causes and solve problems. Do not concentrate on military solutions. Do not seek military solutions. Terrorism is a political problem. Seek political solutions. Diplomacy works. ~ Eqbal Ahmed

Obama is hardly the first president to seek rapprochement with our adversaries and reconciliation with our enemies, of course. But his determination to make nice - even in the face of clear and repeated rejection from the other side - is unparalleled. For Obama and his team, diplomacy with rogue regimes is an end in itself, and any deal, however one-sided, is a win, especially one that the White House communications mavens think that friendly media will call a 'breakthrough' or 'historic.' ~ Stephen F. Hayes

Diplomacy without armaments is like music without instruments. – Frederick the Great ~ George F. Will