20th-century Diplomat Quotes

We don't give them fish. However, we teach them fishing. In that way throughout your life you always have fish to eat. That is Taiwan's way in our joint co-operation in offering assistance to Taiwan's diplomatic allies in the Pacific. All these countries value their relationship with us very much.

Katharine Chang

Recession is when you have to tighten the belt. Depression is when there is no belt to tighten. We are probably in the next degree of collapse when there are no trousers as such.

Of Russia

Good government can be no substitute for self-government.

Muhammad Zafrulla Khan

You cannot be effective if those who work for you are not. So building their effectiveness ought to be a priority.

Richard N. Haass

For the problem of decision-making in our complicated world is not how to get the problem simple enough so that we can all understand it; the problem is how to get our thinking about the problem as complex as humanly possible--and thus approach (we can never match) the complexity of the real world around us.

Harlan Cleveland

Three American presidents-Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson-have asked the question: What do we get from aiding Pakistan? Five-Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama-have wondered aloud whether Pakistan's leaders can be trusted to keep their word.

Full, sustained, and universal democracy and respect for human rights are our guideposts. On these we do not compromise.

Approach your problems from the right end and begin with the answers. Then, one day, perhaps you will find the final answer.

Robert van Gulik

There's no doubt about it. It is an illegal take-over. It's an illegal take-over to clean up the mess of a much bigger illegal activity of the previous government. So what choice do you have? To me, it's better that you do this illegal activity to clean up a much bigger, illegal mess so that we can bring peace … to the people of Fiji.

Jona Senilagakali

I now inform you that you are too far from reality.

Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf

Jewish people have been victims of anti-Semitism in many parts of the world, and in Europe they were the target of the Holocaust, the ultimate abomination. Yet, we cannot expect Palestinians to accept this as a reason why the wrongs done to them

It seems as though he [Barack Obama]... has more of an interest, and more of a cultural capacity to reach out across the aisle in America, and to the world as a whole. As a wise man said once, you campaign in poetry and govern in prose...let's now see if he can deliver. Though I think he will soon find out that the vested interests of Washington are too stubborn for a relatively inexperienced politician such as himself to navigate.

Beware most strictly of any outbursts of emotion which may engender needless complications, or any fraternal contention and strike which may create confusion, lead you astray and cause you to lose the confidence of the world.
Let the entire nation continue as one family from generation to generation, ever firm in its faith in the imperishability of its sacred land, and mindful of its heavy burden of responsibility and of the long road before it.

Democracy cannot be built on revenge and you will not have the support of the world if you are intolerant and take the law into your own hands.

Madeleine Albright

We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security — and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use.

Mohamed ElBaradei

The gossip that came back to me from fashionable dinners where people pitied poor Romain Gary, who must be a little sad, a little jealous of the meteoric rise in the literary firmament of his cousin Emile Ajar… I've had a lot of fun. Good-bye, and thank you.

One reason you tend to doubt conspiracy theories when you've worked in government is because you know government is not nearly competent enough to carry off elaborate theories. It's a banal explanation, but imagine how efficient it would need to be.

Philip D. Zelikow

We all have a share in it, and none of it is good. There are no heroes, just bums. I include myself in that.

Maxwell D. Taylor

I believe we're living at a time in human history where it's just simply unacceptable that children wake up and don't know where to find a cup of food. Not only that, transforming hunger is an opportunity, but I think we have to change our mindsets. I am so honored to be here with some of the world's top innovators and thinkers. And I would like you to join with all of humanity to draw a line in the sand and say, "No more. No more are we going to accept this." And we want to tell our grandchildren that there was a terrible time in history where up to a third of the children had brains and bodies that were stunted, but that exists no more.

Josette Sheeran

Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government.
The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our political leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses.

Joseph C. Wilson

Greece is a sort of American vassal; the Netherlands is the country of American bases that grow like tulip bulbs; Cuba is the main sugar plantation of the American monopolies; Turkey is prepared to kowtow before any United States proconsul and Canada is the boring second fiddle in the American symphony.

If they were real men, following the tradition they would commit a hara-kiri and calm down at last. All they're doing is making noise

On the Japanese complaint about PM Medvedev's visit to the Kuril islands.

Just being a mediocre driver has never been my ambition. That's not my style.

Michael Schumacher

Individual liberty is the whole purpose of political life, and I thought it was threatened then [in 1964 becoming politically engaged at age 15] and I think it's threatened now.

I consider a good reputation is a great part of the human happiness. Some people, if they are very, very rich can permit themselves certain negligence to their reputations.

Aristotle Onassis