Mutsuhito Meiji Quotes

A diplomat these days is nothing but a head-waiter who's allowed to sit down occasionally.

When the ambassadors of other foreign countries come to Japan to make treaties, they can be told that such and such a treaty has been made with the ambassador of the United States, and they will rest satisfied with this.

I might be an ambassador.

I shall have to depend upon you for taking care of these matters of foreign affairs, of which I know so little, and with which I reckon you are familiar.

Let him (the king) also appoint an ambassador who is versed in all sciences, who understands hints, expressions of the face and gestures, who is honest, skilful, and of noble family. Such an ambassador is commended to a king who is loyal, honest, skilful, possessing a good memory, who knows the proper place and time for action, who is handsome, fearless, and eloquent. For the ambassador alone makes kings' allies and separates allies; the ambassador transacts that business by which kings are disunited or not.

An ambassador also serves as an emblem of the country that appoints him.

I swear not to act without instructions in matters of peace or truce, war, negotiations with other potentates about alliances or aid, lands or cities … the sending abroad of ambassadors.

Ambassadors are, by definition, foreign bodies.

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.

Diplomacy is the police in grand costume.

It is an ambassador's duty to stand up for his nation's foreign policy in any era and under any government whatsoever. Ambassadors are, in the full meaning of the term, titled spies.

Diplomats were invented simply to waste time.

Peace and commerce with foreign nations could be more effectually and cheaply cultivated by a common agent; therefore they gave the Federal Government the sole management of our relations with foreign governments.

Throughout history, ambassadors have always been symbolic incarnations of the sovereignty of their nations and the dignity of their leaders.

Traditionally, diplomacy was done in an environment of information scarcity. Ambassadors would send back telegrams to foreign ministries, comfortable in the knowledge that their views of a country would be the only source of information the minister would see.

An ambassador is an honest man sent abroad to lie and intrigue for the benefit of his country.

I don’t talk to countries that exhibit bad behavior.

Our allies and enemies, and Mr. Wilson himself, should all understand that Mr. Wilson has no authority to speak for the American people.

Diplomacy: The patriotic art of lying for one's country.

The government should not present the anomaly which it now presents—a government the freest, perhaps the most democratic in the world with reference to local and domestic matters in which you rule yourselves as fully as any people in the world, while in your foreign affairs, your relations with other countries, whether peaceful or warlike, commercial, financial, or otherwise, you may have no more voice than the people of Japan.

Very near the heart of all foreign affairs is the relationship between policy and military power.

Foreign policy helps incumbents.

Diplomacy is a frequently neglected imperative.

Diplomacy and force are two sides of the same coin.

When the President picks up the phone and calls the Prime Minister, what does it mean to be an ambassador?