Margaret Thatcher Quotes

Diplomacy: the art of jumping into troubled waters without making a splash.

The crises in North Korea, Iran, the Middle East, show how quickly things can change and how they can go wrong. We must be prepared. And right now the Army is not.

Temporary solutions often become permanent problems.

I'm very confident that the solutions that we are developing are going to be effective not only in application in Iraq, but also will be very helpful for potential homeland security situations as well.

Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore... prove ultimately futile.

Every diplomatic breakthrough is preceded by a crisis, but not every crisis leads to a breakthrough.

Diplomats are only useful in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop.

We have to develop preventive diplomacy.

Towards the end of the Banquet came the news, the great world stirring news, that Neville [Chamberlain], on his own initiative, seeing war coming closer and closer, had telegraphed to Hitler that he wanted to see him, and asked him to name an immediate rendezvous…. Of course a way out will not be found. Neville by his imagination and practical good sense, has saved the world.

Part of the genius of diplomacy is to resolve issues before crises come along.

Statecraft, as these cases convincingly illustrate, is demanding and often exhausting work. There are risks, and success is not guaranteed. It requires major governmental and political resources and the same kind of hourly, year-round planning and execution as the conduct of a military campaign.

We have to deal with it diplomatically if we can, militarily if we must.

You always have to decide whether an international problem is like a skinned knee or an abscessed tooth. If it’s a skinned knew with a scab and you start messing with the scab you can make it worse. But if you let it alone, it will heal itself. If it is an abscessed tooth, and you leave it alone, it will only fester more and become a bigger problem.

… not merely peace in our time but peace for all time. To achieve it, it is necessary to examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable — that mankind is doomed — that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are man-made — therefore, they can be solved by man.

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

If Russia and the United States approach each other in starkly adversarial terms, the conflict will badly warp the foreign policy of both countries ...

lot of the uneasiness among Mexican leaders is because of the unknowns. Well those are to be determined and to be discussed and to be negotiated. At the end of the day, our neighborss aren't going anywhere and neigher are we, and we need to find ways to make it work.

We should have communicated to Iran that we are prepared, that we are considering military options. They're not just on the table, they are in our hands.

One should never permit a disorder to persist in order to avoid a war, for wars cannot be avoided and can only be deferred to the advantage of others.

I think when we think about the judgment of someone who might want World War III, we might think about someone who might shut down a bridge because they don't like their friends.

Kennedy was trying to keep us out of war. I was trying to help him keep us out of war. And General Curtis LeMay, whom I served under as a matter of fact in World War II, was saying "Let's go in, let's totally destroy Cuba."

I like what Abba Eban once said during the 1967 war. He said, "When all else fails, men turn to reason."

I can't possibly put myself in his [Tony Blair's] shoes and be inside his head but what I can say is that the security of the nation is the first duty of any government but at the same time for me going to war would always be the last resort. I would exhaust all other opportunities first.

There is no national problem in the world today which cannot be resolved by reason alone.

We have the right to ensure our security, especially when it is possible to reach agreement on a political solution.