Eric Sevareid Quotes

Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.

I tried being reasonable, I didn't like it.

You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can get with just a kind word.

What is negotiation but the accumulation of small lies leading to advantage?

You can't go to a negotiating table pointing a gun, but you've got to keep it over your shoulder.

The art of politics is to design a solution that feels painless to all.

Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable, the art of the next best.

The secret to legislative success in Virginia is courtesy, patience, and persistence; you usually get what you want. You won’t get it if you scream about it, and you won’t get it if you’re not willing to wait a long time.

International negotiation has a nasty tendency to remind its practitioners that the laws of gravity affect them, too, and that international life is a two-way street in which one may have to give in order to get.

Never cut what can be untied.

Wars are ... often the product of the conflicting intentions of decent men who have lost the patience to negotiate.

If politics is an art, it is not like sculpture or painting, where one side acts and the other is passive material. It is more like drama without a script, or dance without choreography - in other words, improvisation.

UN administrators ... think that no problem in the world is too intractable to be solved by negotiation. These mandarins fail to grasp that men with guns do not respect men with nothing but flapping gums ... Just as the US Marine Corps breeds warriors, so the UN’s culture breeds conciliators.

Anyone who has ever negotiated an agreement knows that in order to get it, you have to be willing to walk away from the table..

That’s the trick in any negotiation. Getting to yes means getting the other party satisfied that its interest are being met sufficiently…. You both got to get something out of it that your prepared to fight for at home.

If two people live together, one has to be patient, and typically, the other one is very annoying.

It's a lot easier to negotiate and be skillful from the majority. I want Paul Ryan negotiating with us. I don't want to have to negotiate with Paul Ryan.

The government was built on compromising. And it's frustrating as hell.

If we say to the E.U. our backstop position is that we will be the vassal state, why should the E.U. make any effort to make any arrangement other than us to be a vassal state?

Dealing with political things, it's not for me. It makes me crazy. I want to buy, you want to sell. Please make it simple.

The world itself is so full of changes - of negotiations, changes of position, seeing things one way, then another, gauging responses, status changes that can happen in an instant.

When I tell a child something the first time, I'm nice. The 15th time, I start to get aggravated.

You have to have patience to be a legislator.

If there are sound reasons or bases for the points you demand, then there is no need for violence. On the other hand, when there is no sound reason that concessions should be made to you but mainly your own desire, then reason cannot work and you have to rely on force. Thus using force is not a sign of strength but rather a sign of weakness.

If you put it on the table as a bargaining chip, it becomes a bargaining chip