The United Nations cannot do anything, and never could; it is not an animate entity or agent. It is a place, a stage, a forum and a shrine... a place…

- Conor Cruise O'Brien

British diplomats, constantly exposed to American political-ethical rhetoric, find their professional skills tested to the limits by the need to keep…

- Conor Cruise O'Brien

A good man giving bad advice is more dangerous than a nasty man giving bad advice.

- Conor Cruise O'Brien

The main thing that endears the United Nations to member governments, and so enables it to survive, is its proven capacity to fail... You can safely …

- Conor Cruise O'Brien

You can safely appeal to the UN in the comfortable certainty that it will let you down.

- Conor Cruise O'Brien

In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: 'Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.' Unfortunately the sickness g…

- Conor Cruise O'Brien

Nothing does more to activate Christian divisions than talk about Christian unity.

- Conor Cruise O'Brien

Irishness is not primarily a question of birth or blood or language; it is the condition of being involved in the Irish situation, and usually of bei…

- Conor Cruise O'Brien

The sea which we think of separating the two island actually joins them.

- Conor Cruise O'Brien