George R. R. Martin Quotes

When your enemies defy you, you must serve them steel and fire. When they go to their knees, however, you must help them back to their feet. Elsewise no man will ever bend the knee to you

You don't always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it too.

War is like government, a matter of tact.

Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.

War is what happens when language fails.

You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force you can get a lot more done

Wisdom is better than weapons of war.

If talk is impossible, then war is inevitable.

What would you do in my position? Would you drop the war where it is? Or would you prosecute it in the future with elder-stalk squirts charged with rose water? Would you deal lighter blows rather than heavier ones?.... I shall do all I can to save the government, which is my sworn duty as well as my personal inclination.

The fact that talk may be boring or turgid or uninspiring should not cause us to forget the fact that it is preferable to war.

It becomes a conqueror to conciliate.

Diplomacy takes time.

You have to talk to them before you think about bombing them.

… deterrence success is heavily dependent both on signaling the adversary on your intentions and on that adversary interpreting your signals correctly. Communications, through words and deeds, is thus central to a deterrence relationship.

You shall more command with years than with your weapons.

War's a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at.

Those good at war aren't good at peace, and those good at peace aren't good at war.

We want peace with all our hearts. But peace cannot be achieved through weakness.

It has perhaps always been the case that the waging of peace is the hardest form of leadership of all.

There are times for making war and times for making peace.

A really good diplomat does not go in for victories, even when he wins them.

Diplomacy is the art of telling people to go to hell in such a way that they ask for directions.

What you get with violence can be maintained only with violence

Jane! will you hear reason?' (he stooped and approached his lips to my ear) 'because, if you won't, I'll try violence.

Peace by persuasion has a pleasant sound, but I think we should not be able to work it. We should have to tame the human race first, and history seems to show that that cannot be done.