Chris Matthews Quotes

If you're a politician, you can see there might be times when, to secure the greater good, you have to take a backwards step. That is a matter of tactics.

Hillary Clinton follows a cardinal rule in politics - don't commit to a decision before you have to.

As a member of Congress, I'm often reminded that in baseball, as in diplomacy, you have to know when to hit, when to run, and when to show grace.

In general, I think it's an advantage politically to keep people guessing.

A real diplomat is one who can cut his neighbor's throat without having his neighbor notice it.

The essential ingredient of politics is timing.

In politics, as in business, leadership is crucial.

President Obama seems to think that you win by demonstrating that you're a more reasonable person than your opponents. It didn't work too badly, I'll grant, as an electoral strategy in the 2012 election.

When diplomats meet, they are, of necessity, ambiguous, in order to get an agreement.

Politics and strategy are one.

Politics is all a matter of timing.

In politics things change, in politics timing is important, and in politics, how I move, I don't tell you.

Politics is not a science...but an art.

Politics is a game requiring great coolness.

Diplomacy, of course, is a subtle and nuanced craft, so much so that it's said that when the most wily diplomat of the nineteenth-century passed away, other diplomats asked, on reports of his death, "What do you suppose the old fox meant by that?

I enjoyed the administrative work because it involved working with Congress, city council, and the mayor. I had never been a politician so it was fun - learning political maneuvering.

I told him that my own opinion was that the time now and the method now to deal with Russia was to keep our mouths shut and let our actions speak for words.

The art of politics is knowing what to do next.

A statesman wants courage and a statesman wants vision; but believe me, after six months' experience, he wants first, second, third and all the time - patience.

Politics at bottom is not all that complicated. It's all about timing.

President Barack Obama would do well to take a page or two from Clinton's playbook.

There are no techniques in politics.

Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of state.

In bridge clubs and in councils of state, the passions are the same.

I don't think that anybody should be ruling in or ruling out anything while we are conducting diplomacy.