Quotes on International Relations

Every aspect of the world today - even politics and international relations - is affected by chemistry.

War gives the right to the conquerors to impose any condition they please upon the vanquished.

The international community should support a system of laws to regularize international relations and maintain the peace in the same manner that law governs national order.

The concept of national sovereignty has been an immutable, indeed sacred, principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation. It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation states, however powerful. The global community must be assured of environmental security.

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.

A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security.

At bottom, every state regards another as a gang of robbers who will fall upon it as soon as there is an opportunity.

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.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Realising the healthy international relations can be created only among populations made up of individuals who themselves are healthy and enjoy a measure a independence, the United Nations elaborated a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on December 10, 1948.

Universality of the UN is a worthwhile thing in its own self because it means that every country belongs, feels it has a stake, and participates, rather than going away and finding other methods of conducting international relations.

Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.

Law is the essential foundation of stability and order both within societies and in international relations.

International order is not an evolution; it is an imposition. It is the domination of one vision over others- in this case, the domination of liberal free market principles of economics, democratic principles of politics, and a peaceful international system over other visions that other nations and peoples may have. It will last only as long as those who favor it retain the capacity to defend it.

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.

The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.