Diplomat Quotes

The most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin.

You should take a good look at all sides of an issue before making a decision. Put something away in case of an emergency. New neighbors will bring good cheer. A small problem may occur at home base, but you will solve it quickly and correctly. Don't offer smart advice unless you are really asked to comment.

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.

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.

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 real strength of democracy is that anyone who is not specifically against it must ultimately be for it, while communism suffers from the great tactical liability that anyone who is not specifically for it is eventually forced to oppose it.

Edwin O. Reischauer

Baby, after considerable thought I've reached the conclusion that the only conceivable legitimate answer to the Universe as constituted is a peal of hysterical laughter.

The art of injudicious reading, the art of miscellaneous reading which every normal man ought to cultivate, is a very fine and satisfactory art; for the best guide to books is a book itself. It clasps hands with a thousand other books.

Maurice Francis Egan

As with men, it has always seemed to me that books have their own peculiar destinies. They go towards the people who are waiting for them and reach them at the right moment. They are made of living material and continue to cast light through the darkness long after the death of their authors.

Poetry cannot report the event, it must be the event, lived through in a form that can speak about itself while remaining wholly itself.

Balachandra Rajan

A great factory with the machinery all working and revolving with absolute and rhythmic regularity and with the men all driven by one impulse, and moving in unison as though a constituent part of the mighty machine, is one of the most inspiring examples of directed force that the world knows. I have rarely seen the face of a mechanic in the action of creation which was not fine, never one which was not earnest and impressive.

Thomas Nelson Page

My faith instills in me a deep sense of humility and gratitude, reminding me how often I fall short and how much I need the savior, and how thankful I am that God has done for us what we could not do for ourselves.

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

For what, in all the world, is more common than love? What state, what little town, what family lacks examples? Who, that has reached his thirtieth year, has not endured some villainy for love's sake? I conjecture from myself whom love has sent into a thousand perils, and I thank the Gods above that I have a thousand times escaped the ambushes prepared for me; more fortunate in my star than Mars whom Vulcan took with Venus, and caught them in an iron net, and displayed them, as a laughing-stock, to the other Gods.

Dullness is the only crime for which an editor ought to be hung.

Josephus Daniels

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.

No sign of purpose can be detected in any part of the vast universe disclosed by our most powerful telescopes.

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

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...

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

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.