Douglas Brinkley Quotes

There should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat.

I don't like to fight.

If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

Very few conflicts in the history of the world have been satisfactorily concluded according to a published timetable, because you lose all flexibility in dealing with your opponents.

Costa Rica believes in building bridges, in looking for solutions to problems, and not clinging to positions.

The English buy peace rather than make it.

The alternative is not war or doing nothing. Whoever rejects war is not doomed to appeasement.

Talk brings opponents together.

Better build them a golden bridge than offer a decisive battle.

I have desired as sincerely as any man—I sometimes think more than any other man—that our present difficulties might be settled without the shedding of blood.

I want peace [in my administration] and I am told that your friend Theodore [Roosevelt]—whom I know only slightly—is always getting into rows with everybody. I am afraid he is too pugnacious.

It is impossible for either nations or individuals, in the management of a dispute, to have the benefit of two opposite chances. They may be, from the first, moderate, pacific, magnanimous; they will thus secure certain advantages, and they will lose possible advantages. They may, on the contrary, be haughty, warlike, and selfish ; their chances and advantages will then be the reverse of the former. It is impossible to unite the two.

I see myself as a bridge-builder who can understand both sides.

I like to be a peacekeeper, and I just don't believe in stirring up conflict.

If we're fighting, we call Khloe. She's our peacemaker. Kourtney keeps us down-to-earth.

My preference is not to fight a Mexican.

I wish to pay attention to what we can do better to prevent conflict. Because by avoiding conflict, we save human lives, and we also save money.

I'm always willing to work stuff out, because I'm that type of guy.

Mediation is one of the most effective tools of non-violence. It can turn parties away from conflict, towards compromise.

I always say, you're going to have to ask someone else, but I believe the purpose is to stand as a reconciler, a bridge builder.

I spent an important part of my life participating in conflicts. But for me, conflict was not the main principle.

There never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword.

I can't really fight.

But the myth of violent solutions as the ultimate solutions maintains itself in much of popular media.