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Diplomacy mostly consists of managing crazies who are making unreasonable demands in impossible situations with no solutions. And those are just our allies.

Nicholas Kristof (b. 1959) American journalist and political commentator
“The Foreign Relations Fumbler,” New York Times (16 Sep 2012)
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Added on 19-Apr-21 | Last updated 19-Apr-21
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We will lead not merely by the example of our power but by the power of our example.

Joe Biden (b. 1942) American politician, US President (2021- ) [Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.]
Inaugural Address (20 Jan 2021)
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Regarding American foreign relations.
 
Added on 17-Mar-21 | Last updated 17-Mar-21
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They know of no solutions to the paradoxes of the Middle East and Europe, the Far East and Africa except the landing of Marines. Being baffled, and also being very tired of being baffled, they have come to believe that there is no way out — except war — which would remove all the bewildering paradoxes of their tedious and now misguided attempts to construct peace. In place of these paradoxes they prefer the bright, clear problems of war — as they used to be. For they still believe that “winning” means something, although they never tell us what.

C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) American sociologist, academic, author [Charles Wright Mills]
The Causes of World War Three (1958)
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Added on 22-Feb-21 | Last updated 22-Feb-21
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The best foreign policy is to live our daily lives in honesty, decency, and integrity; at home, making our own land a more fitting habitation for free men; and abroad, joining with those of like mind and heart, to make of the world a place where all men can dwell in peace.

Eisenhower - honesty decency integrity - wist_info quote

Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Inaugural Gabriel Silver lecture, Columbia University (23 Mar 1950)

Eisenhower was President of Columbia University at the time. The quote was widely used in an "I Believe" advertisement for Eisenhower during the 1956 election.

(Sources 1 and 2)
 
Added on 21-Jun-16 | Last updated 21-Jun-16
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There are no friends at cards or world politics

Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) American humorist and journalist
(Attributed)
 
Added on 12-Feb-16 | Last updated 12-Feb-16
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I have said time and again there is no place on this earth to which I would not travel, there is no chore I would not undertake if I had any faintest hope that, by so doing, I would promote the general cause of world peace.

Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
News Conference (23 Mar 1955)
 
Added on 9-Feb-16 | Last updated 9-Feb-16
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The peace we seek and need means much more than mere absence of war. It means the acceptance of law, and the fostering of justice, in all the world.

Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
“Developments in Eastern Europe and the Middle East,” Broadcast Speech (31 Oct 1956)
 
Added on 26-Jan-16 | Last updated 26-Jan-16
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Institutions like to continue doing what they have been doing, always on a grander scale, if possible. When old enemies disappear, mellow, or turn into allies, as frequently happens in international relations, new enemies must be found and new threats must be discovered. The failure to replenish the supply of enemies is the supreme threat facing any national security bureaucracy.

Richard J. Barnet (1929-2004) American scholar, writer, activist
Roots of War, 5.1 (1971)
 
Added on 18-Aug-15 | Last updated 18-Aug-15
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We have borne patiently a great deal of wrong, on the consideration that if nations go to war for every degree of injury, there would never be peace on earth. But when patience has begotten false estimates of it’s motives, when wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be borne, resistance becomes morality.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Anne-Louise-Germaine Necker, Baronne de Staël-Holstein (16 Jul 1807)
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Added on 14-Apr-15 | Last updated 17-Jul-22
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The crisis in which [our country] is placed cannot but be unwelcome to those who love peace, yet spurn at a tame submission to wrong.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to the New York Tammany Society (29 Feb 1808)
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Sent to Jacob Van Dervoort, and addressed to "the Society of Tammany or Columbian order No. 1 of the city of New York."
 
Added on 3-Mar-15 | Last updated 3-Aug-22
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My hope of preserving peace for our country is not founded in the quaker principle of non resistance under every wrong, but in the belief that a just and friendly conduct on our part will procure justice and friendship from others, and that, in the existing contest, each of the combatants will find an interest in our friendship.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to the Earl of Buchan (10 Jul 1803)
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Added on 17-Feb-15 | Last updated 3-Aug-22
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National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity, and baseness of mankind take in every country. If we become disgusted with one, we praise another, until we get disgusted with this too. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.

[Dem Nationalcharakter wird, da er von der Menge redet, nie viel Gutes ehrlicherweise nachzurühmen sein. Vielmehr erscheint nur die menschliche Beschränktheit, Verkehrtheit und Schlechtigkeit in jedem Lande in einer andern Form und diese nennt man den Nationalcharakter. Von einem derselben degoutirt loben wir den andern, bis es uns mit ihm eben so ergangen ist. — Jede Nation spottet über die andere, und alle haben recht.]

Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher
Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 1, “Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life [Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit],” ch. 4 “Position, or a Man’s Place in the Estimation of Others [Von dem, was einer vorstellt]” (1851) [tr. Saunders (1890), 4.2]
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(Source (German)). Alternate translation:

Since national character speaks of the crowd, not much good will ever be honestly said in its favour. On the contrary, we see in a different form in each country only human meanness, perversity, and depravity, and this is called national character. Having become disgusted with one of them, we praise another until we become just as disgusted with it. Every nation ridicules the rest and all are right.
[tr. Payne (1974), ch. 4 "What a Man Represents"]

 
Added on 2-Apr-12 | Last updated 7-Sep-22
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A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit. A manipulated population can be misused in serving any military adventure whatever. Unreliability in some areas arouses justifiable fear of unreliability in everything. A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states.

Václav Havel (1936-2011) Czech playwright, essayist, dissident, politician
“An Anatomy of Reticence [Anatomie jedné zdrženlivosti],” sec. 9, no. 5 (1985-04) [tr. Kohák (1986)]
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First reprinted in Cross Currents: A Yearbook of Central European Culture #5 (1986). Reprinted here in Living in Truth: twenty-two essays published on the occasion of the award of the Erasmus Prize to Václav Havel, Part 1, ch. 6 (1986).
 
Added on 8-Jun-09 | Last updated 22-Jul-23
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So let us begin anew — remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Inaugural Address (20 Jan 1961)
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Added on 12-Sep-07 | Last updated 27-May-16
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