Andy Rooney Quotes

The logic of collective security is flawless, provided it can be made to work under the conditions prevailing on the international scene... The odds, however, are strongly against such a possibility.

Isolationism has been a calamity.

The United States may have to abandon its policy of avoiding entangling alliances.

Don't think we've ever convinced the American people that it's not in our interest to be isolationists. Our tendency for the first century, maybe century-and-a-half of our existence was to be isolationists, to hide behind the two mighty oceans, to become self-sufficient, and to follow Washington's caution not to become involved in foreign entanglements and alliances.

Non-alignment will continue to be the fundamental basis of our approach to world problems and our relations with other countries.

Space has always been confusing to politics.

Donald Trump's America can be friend and ally, or at least an indifferent power that concentrates on itself and minds its own business.

Things are different in the international relations between states. In this respect, I am neither a friend, nor bride or groom [of the West].

As far as Russia goes, they've been our partner for a long time now, since the early '90's. So you know, what's that, that's more than 15 years. And there have been times where things were a little tense, a little testy, but by and large, the partnership has been very successful. To give you two examples of that, when the Columbia accident occurred, the Russians supported us with their spacecraft faring our astronauts, including me, to the space station and also supplies.

The US wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The department of state desired that the UN prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.

We need American foreign policy that tells the world very clearly that it is bad to be our enemy and good to be our friend.

I believe that Israel is one of our most important friends in the world.

It should never be the goal of U.S. foreign policy towards any country to have a - quote, unquote - "good relation." Then what? What do we get out of that? We get - Trump is helping the approval ratings amongst Russians. How does that advance American national security interests?

My main concern is with the world order

One of the things that I heard for years and years, never drive Russia and China together. And Obama has done that.

I believe that the G20 should not interfere [foreign policy], because there are other platforms for that.

I would love to have a stable, productive relationship with Russia.

In a world of danger and trial, peace is our deepest aspiration, and when peace comes we will gladly convert not our swords into plowshares, but our bombs into peaceful reactors, and our planes into space vessels. "Pursue peace," the Bible tells us, and we shall pursue it with every effort and every energy that we possess. But it is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.

I think the point that we all agree upon is that we have to engage with Russia.

I don't know all the facts on Iraq, but I think we should work closely with the Americans.

Today, it is imperative to end this hysteria, to refute the rhetoric of the Cold War and to accept the obvious fact: Russia is an independent, active participant in international affairs. Like other countries, it has its own national interests that need to be taken into account and respected.

I would have set out very quickly the relationship with Europe.

The aim of political institutions like the United Nations is to draw the line between struggle and conflict and to make it possible for nations to stay on the right side of that line.

We try to coordinate regularly with Russia, as well as with others - except for the United States - on what is happening in the region. And we're open to discussing with everybody the situation in Syria, because we believe it's a common threat.

We must reject the idea of isolationism, . But that doesn't mean we should get involved in every civil war around the world.