Diplomat Quotes

Hayden had resigned as Opposition leader in 1983 as Malcolm Fraser was in the process of calling the election, but remained convinced that he would have won: I am not convinced the Labor Party could not win under my leadership. I believe a drover's dog could lead the Labor Party to victory the way the country is.

It is an observation which all the world can verify, that there is nothing so deplorable as the conduct of some celebrated mathematicians in their own affairs, nor anything so absurd as their opinions on the sciences not within their jurisdiction.

Moral stimulation is good but moral complacency is the most dangerous habit of mind we can develop, and that danger is serious and ever-present.

The soul of our service is the loyalty with which we execute ordained error.

Robert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart

The ideal civil servant should always be colourless, odourless and tasteless.

Roger Peyrefitte

Payola is the year's new word. It doesn't sound as ugly as bribe, but it means the same thing.

William Attwood

May there be freedom, equality and brotherhood among all men. May there be morality in the relations among nations. May there be, in our time, at long last, a world at peace in which we, the people, may for once begin to make full use of the great good that is in us.

Oratory is just like prostitution: you must have little tricks.

Vittorio Emanuele Orlando

Now I am nothing but a veil; all my body is a veil beneath which a child sleeps.

Gabriela Mistral

We continue to assert the principles of no political preconditions, mutual respect and openness to innovation as the basis of talks with Beijing, while showing goodwill and creating a friendly environment for communication.

The human mind is prone to pride even when not supported by power; how much more, then, does it exalt itself when it has that support?

A mugwump is a person educated beyond his intellect.

They're a burden for us
the friends who no longer know how to die.

Giorgos Seferis

I must leave all that! Farewell, dear paintings that I have loved so much and which have cost me so much.

Last words

Ludendorff: The English soldiers fight like lions.
Hoffman: True. But don't we know that they are lions led by donkeys.

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

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

If you achieve a voice that will be heard, you should use it to speak up for the voiceless and oppressed. If you possess any power or authority, you must strive to use it to help and empower the powerless.

A Soviet diplomat, like a skilled chess player, does not expect his opposite number to give up something for nothing, not even a pawn.

Arthur Dean (lawyer)

No system of education is complete that does not harden the hands and toughen muscles, while it is also develops the intellect and enlarges the heart...only through work do we attain the true symmetry, strength, and glory of godly manhood and womanhood.

Alexander Clark

If added power attends the united prayer of two or three, what mighty triumphs there will be when hundreds of thousands of consistent members of the Church are with one accord day by day making intercession for the extension of Christ's Kingdom.

Let your motto be RESISTANCE! RESISTANCE! RESISTANCE! No oppressed people have ever secured their Liberty without resistance. What kind of resistance you had better make, you must decide by the circumstances that surround you, and according to the suggestion of expediency.

Henry Highland Garnet

Just like Love is yonder rose,
Heavenly fragrance round it throws,
Yet tears its dewy leaves disclose,
And in the midst of briars it blows
Just like Love.

Percy Smythe, 6th Viscount Strangford

The very first step toward giving to others is grateful recognition of our own assets.

In a general sense, this doctrine [conservation of energy] is coeval with the dawn of human intelligence. It is nothing more than an application of the simple principle that nothing can come from or to nothing...