Quotes on Diplomacy

Throughout my career, from Jamaica to Nigeria, Pakistan to Switzerland, I've learned that effective diplomacy means more than shaking hands and staging photo ops. It means developing real, robust relationships. It means finding common ground and managing points of differentiation. It means doing genuine, old-fashioned, people-to-people diplomacy.

We must use all the tools of American power in resolving disputes, including diplomacy. And we must have sufficient congressional debate and oversight before ever putting another U.S. solider in harm's way.

Diplomacy is listening to what the other guy needs. Preserving your own position, but listening to the other guy. You have to develop relationships with other people so when the tough times come, you can work together.

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

The dustbin of history is littered with remains of those countries that relied on diplomacy to secure their freedom. We must never forget . . . in the final analysis . . . that it is our military, industrial and economic strength that offers the best guarantee of peace for America in times of danger.

(A Foreign Secretary) is forever poised between the cliche and the indiscretion.

Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it... You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.

Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness.

The foes now are universal - poverty, famine, religious radicalization, desertification, drugs, proliferation of nuclear weapons, ecological devastation. They threaten all nations, just as science and information are the potential friends of all nations. Classical diplomacy and strategy were aimed at identifying enemies and confronting them. Now they have to identify dangers, global or local, and tackle them before they become disasters.

There are few ironclad rules of diplomacy but to one there is no exception. When an official reports that talks were useful, it can safely be concluded that nothing was accomplished.

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

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

It's hard to overstate the lasting harm Mr. Tillerson's tenure will do to America's diplomacy.

Once the Xerox copier was invented, diplomacy died.

I always felt that a scientist owes the world only one thing, and that is the truth as he sees it. If the truth contradicts deeply held beliefs, that is too bad. Tact and diplomacy are fine in international relations, in politics, perhaps even in business; in science only one thing matters, and that is the facts.

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

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

The Montreal Protocol is a model of cooperation. It is a product of the recognition and international consensus that ozone depletion is a global problem, both in terms of its causes and its effects. The protocol is the result of an extraordinary process of scientific study, negotiations among representatives of the business and environmental communities, and international diplomacy. It is a monumental achievement.

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

Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.

All war represents a failure of diplomacy.