Yoshihide Suga Quotes

Diplomacy is more than saying or doing the right things at the right time, it is avoiding saying or doing the wrong things at any time.

Diplomats make it their business to conceal the facts, and politicians violently denounce the politicians of other countries.

It is fortunate that diplomats have long noses since they usually cannot see beyond them.

At home you always have to be a politician. When you're abroad you almost feel yourself a statesman.

When Barack Obama was running for president, he committed to leading the United Nations and other countries towards a common global goal. Obama believed that he could speak to allies and dictators directly and charm them into seeing the error of their ways.

(A Foreign Secretary) is forever poised between the cliche and the indiscretion.

Americans are inclined to see the world and foreign affairs in black and white.

The biggest mistakes, early on, involved foreign policy and involved the strategy for health care.

Foreign policy is like human relations, only people know less about each other.

Certainly, the Bush Administration will rely in the first instance on its friends, since it would be both illogical and counterproductive to reward its adversaries.

My diplomatic position will not consist of going and kneeling down in front of George Bush.

I have never dealt with people who have so little political sagacity as the Turks.

Personal pique is not a foreign policy.

You'd make a great Secretary of State because State Department personnel don't answer questions completely either.

I am willing to go anywhere. Israel will be surprised to hear that I am willing to go to the Knesset itself and negotiate with them.

Cool, realistic diplomats are prepared to try to negotiate with any type of regime whenever the national interest calls for it; the last thing that should ever be done to turn emotional or "demonize" another foreign leader no matter how nasty he may be.

Diplomats make it their business to conceal the facts.

Be careful what you say. Words matter. Words really matter in foreign policy.

Foreign policy is like plumbing. You never notice it till it breaks and then all hell breaks loose.

English [foreign] policy is to float lazily downstream, occasionally putting out a diplomatic boat-hook to avoid collisions.

Yes, sir, from Constantinople, or from the Brazils; from Turk or Christian; from black or white; from the dey of Algiers or the bey of Tunis; from the devil himself, if he wore a crown, we should receive a minister.

It is to be regretted when internal considerations determine a counterproductive and irresponsible foreign policy.

The Chinese are really good at diplomacy - and even at making their interlocutors feel very uncomfortable.

I wanted to be a man who travelled the world to make peace. I didn't realise that most diplomats are megaphones for their governments.

It's too bad we can't take VA leadership and export it and give it to some of our adversaries around the planet. Let them suffer under VA's leadership.