Ernie Chambers Quotes

I'm lucky to have met so many people who have been involved in peace and who have been peace prize winners.

First, President Reagan was not enthusiastic. But I built up a relationship with him in other areas and then persuaded him that this was important to us and to me, and that we had to at least be in the process of looking at this seriously.

I was weary of being a messenger, negotiator, manipulator and middleman.

Now the question is, how can we make our two peoples, both of whom love peace, come closer together.

Diplomacy … means the art of nearly deceiving all your friends, but not quite deceiving all your enemies

We are a peace-loving people.

I see how people boss other actors around to try to get a scene favorable to them. I absolutely just never engage in doing that. If someone's going to do it to me, I just let them have it.

And a diplomatist is one who lets the other fellow think he's getting his way, while all the time he's having his own. It never does any special harm to let people have their way with their mouths.

Barack Obama said he may negotiate with the Taliban. A lot of people are saying okay, but be careful. But I said this guy has experience negotiating with the enemy. For gosh sake, he lives with his mother-in-law, you know.

I've dealt with politicians my entire life. You never make a bad deal with a politician. They're so easy.

I control every interaction with every human being I'm with. I can actually manage any situation with 98 percent of the people on Earth.

Although I may not be a lioness, I am a lion's cub, and inherit many of his qualities; and as long as the King of France treats me gently he will find me as gentle and tractable as he can desire; but if he be rough, I shall take the trouble to be just as troublesome and offensive to him as I can.

All men have a feeling, that they would rather you told them a civil lie than give them a point blank refusal.... If you make a promise, the thing is still uncertain, depends on a future day, and concerns but few people; but if you refuse you alienate people to a certainty and at once, and many people too.

I do travel a lot, because I need oxygen, I need to go to places to meet people who aren't upset at me because I'm asking for peace.

If it turns out that President Barack Obama can make a deal with the most intransigent, hard-line, unreasonable, totalitarian mullahs in the world but not with Republicans? Maybe he's not the problem.

We must pursue peaceful end through peaceful means.

In business we cut each others' throats, but now and then we sit around the same table and behave-for the sake of the ladies.

Women always look for a peaceful solution to a conflict. They are more sensible when they go for compromise or when they stand by their position. They are ready to listen to different views, to hear all the voices in society.

Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.

Moses should have said "Let my people go. Please."

Being polite is not only the right way to respond to people but also the easiest. Life is so filled with unavoidable conflict that I see no reason to promote more confrontations.

This is war,' I yelled through the door. Lucky for me,' Morelli said. 'I give good war.

Why don't we have people like Thich Nhat Hanh or Marshall Rosenberg and Nelson Mandela solving violent situations in a peaceful way?

Here is an example: while resolving current issues, our American colleagues made a proposal on the Syrian settlement but then suddenly declared at the UN that they were not going to discuss anything with us. It is necessary to understand what people want in one department versus another department of the United States. Do they have a common position? And this happened many times on very many areas of our cooperation.

When Hillary Clinton ran against Senator [Barack] Obama she thought him naive because he thought it was a good idea to talk to our enemies. I think those are exactly the people you have to talk to and you have to negotiate with.