Benjamin Franklin Quotes

A huge amount of negotiations and diplomacy has nothing to do with bartering or arguing but is just trying to get everyone [doing the negotiating] on the same page. It takes yours, days, even weeks sometimes.

The main purpose of dialogue is to come to an agreement on how the two parties can work together, realize their mutual interests, and avoid conflict as much as possible

Negotiations can create conditions that can lead to solutions.

I don't twist arms. I shake hands.

Reason gains all people by compelling none.

We have to find compromises. That's the way it is in Norway.

Whenever you accept our views we shall be in full agreement with you.

Negotiations take time.

Encourage a readiness to find consensus.

Negotiating is a little like jazz. You improvise on a theme. You know where you want to go, but you’re not always sure how to get there.

We must not allow expectations to outdistance negotiations.

Conflict resolution cannot be merely about eliminating all opposition or reducing the choices in negotiating the problem to two mutually exclusive sets of rights and wrongs. Rather, it must consist of laboring to bring everybody to accept reality and then to project a future with this understanding as the foundation.

You need people that are willing to talk to the other side, or you're never going to get anything done. You need to be willing to expand your ground. There's always usually a place on issues where you can find common ground.

Choose the path of dialogue rather than the path of unilateral decisions.

I think it is possible to meet people in the middle, to have a discussion even though you may not agree on solutions, and find some common ground and get to consensus.

The sweetest two words in any negotiation are actually, 'That's right.' Before you convince them to see what you're trying to accomplish, you have to say the things to them that will get them to say, 'That's right.'

when a person implores you to be reasonable what he means is that you should speed round forthwith to his point of view.

Politics and more politics - that's how you work towards the building of agreements.

Negotiating in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.

A peace talk is always difficult, always complicated.

We will not change in matters of policy until such time as dialogue has begun.

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.

So much of life is a negotiation - so even if you're not in business, you have opportunities to practice all around you.

My job is to come up with something that you like and you agree with that you would play wholeheartedly. If we disagree, I may not be doing my job correctly.

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.