Richard Holbrooke Quotes

Whatever policy we adopt, there must be an energetic prosecution of it.

It's easy to defend a policy that works. It's not so easy to defend a policy that didn't work.

It’s much easier to have an attitude … than a policy.

Nine times out of ten your two smartest policy advisors disagree.

Providing the vision is easy. Getting policy right is hard. The hard thing about the modern world is doing it. The world is changing so fast.

Good organization does not necessarily mean it will produce good policy. But bad organization will almost never produce good policy.

Successful and unsuccessful political policies have one commonalty. The people who created the policies thought they would be successful.

If you can’t bring the people with you, you lose the policy

A government must not waiver once it has chosen its course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward.

You have to adapt your policies to changing circumstances.

Our experience with ad hoc wartime and post-hostilities agencies operating in the foreign field has demonstrated that not only are new agencies of little value in executing policies which go beyond the vision and the educational horizon of their own personnel, but that they actually develop a momentum of their own which, in the final analysis, tends to shape—rather than to serve—the national policy.

People (political and military leaders) much prefer to speak of what they are going to do rather than what the outcome will be.

The best way you make policy in Washington is by doing it yourself.

What matters is not a simple sense of an issue’s salience, but whether a government can shape outcomes on it, where there is the greatest likelihood that the parties will actually be able to implement their policies.

It is circumstance and proper timing that give an action its character and make it either good or bad.

Knowing what you cannot do is more important than knowing what you can do.

We should not, however, proceed with the adventure simply because we are wound up and cannot stop.

[The Cuban embargo is:] … not just a policy tool [but] a moral statement.

The statesman must weigh the rewards of success against the penalties of failure. And he is permitted only one guess.

it is … not a good idea to resort to tossing coins.

We must not be shocked into impotence because we are afraid of the difficulty of the alternatives facing us.

Wherever people are free, foreign and domestic policy are inseparable.

What succeeds best politically does not always do so policy wise and vice versa.

Governing is about selecting.

A government may not waver; once it has chosen its course, it must, without looking to right or left, thenceforth go forward.