Louis E. Boone Quotes

I will not resolve a land dispute if civil groups or politicians are involved in the land disputes.

Through the centuries, men of law have been persistently concerned with the resolution of disputes in ways that enable society to achieve its goals with a minimum of force and maximum of reason.

The courts of this country should not be the places where resolution of disputes begins. They should be the places where the disputes end after alternative methods of resolving disputes have been considered and tried.

You have to listen to adversaries and keep looking for that point beyond which it's against their interests to keep on disagreeing or fighting.

All peoples have evolved extraordinarily precise ways of settling issues about the things that matter to them.

I deal with conflicts that irritate people and give them stress, like the dispute over a car payment. I can resolve those cases in a moment.

Some of the best preparation I had for coming to Congress is being a football referee. Because you've got to make a decision, and no matter what you do, someone's unhappy with you.

To constitute a dispute there must be two parties. To understand it well, both parties and all the circumstances must be fully heard; and to accommodate the differences, temper and mutual forbearance are requisite.

If I had an argument with a player we would sit down for twenty minutes, talk about it and then decide I was right!

I realized the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder. The lesson was so indelibly burnt into me that a large part of my time during the twenty years of my practice as a lawyer was occupied in bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases. I lost nothing thereby -- not even money, certainly not my soul.

No negotiation is ever possible if you have to negotiate not only with the people in the room but also with some other committee in permanent session.

I'm a mediator by training and inclination.

Sometimes you need conflict in order to come up with a solution. Through weakness, oftentimes, you can't make the right sort of settlement, so I'm aggressive, but I also get things done, and in the end, everybody likes me.

A lean compromise is better than a fat lawsuit.

You have to pick your battles on set.

With one decision, Judge Sotomayor changed the entire dispute. Her ruling rescued the 1995 baseball season and forced the parties to resume real negotiations.

You know, you pick and choose your battles.

The most important thing in an argument, next to being right, is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent, so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without too much apparent loss of face.

When you deal with your brother, be pleasant, but get a witness.

Talk is over-rated as a means of settling disputes.

I think most conflicts do end with negotiated settlements; some don't, but most do.

History is filled with tragic examples of wars that result from diplomatic impasse. Whether in our local communities or in international relations, the skillful use of our communicative capacities to negotiate and resolve differences is the first evidence of human wisdom.

Don't fight the problem, decide it.

When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.