William Kirby Quotes

Conflicts between nations will continue to arise. The real issue is whether they are to be resolved by force, or by resort to peaceful methods and procedures, administered by impartial institutions.

I have desired as sincerely as any man—I sometimes think more than any other man—that our present difficulties might be settled without the shedding of blood.

I wish to see the discovery of a plan that would induce and oblige nations to settle their disputes without cutting one another's throats.

Number one, that it is smart to communicate and negotiate with your enemy instead of just waging war with bombs and weapons of mass destruction.

I try to avoid conflict. I don't want people to be unhappy.

You can only end a negotiation for peace if you begin it.

I'm not looking for a battle with anybody, neither the council nor our labor partners.

The best way to solve problems and to fight against war is through dialogue.

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 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.

We have to develop preventive diplomacy.

All States do not have the same interests, but are there any interests which cannot be infinitely better reconciled before than after a war?

There is no such thing as a conflict that cannot be ended.

One should not maintain a dispute.

For many years I have known a good deal about international arbitrations and I have never known of one in which both nations in controversy did not benefit more from having the question between them settled than either gained from a favorable judgment or lost by an unfavorable one.

We believe in resolving all disputes peacefully.

It is our belief that nations should embrace dialogue and peaceful settlement of disputes instead of rushing to arms, for suffering and bloodshed will ensue.

I strongly feel that there has to be a dialogue process internally as well as externally, with Pakistan.

I think that we, as a civilization, need to sit down and figure out how to solve political problems over a table, not over a battlefield.

History has proved that the most ardent enemies have settled their differences through talks and not war.

Mediation is one of the most effective tools of non-violence. It can turn parties away from conflict, towards compromise.

Diplomacy is essential if we are to find peaceful resolutions in times of tension.

It is very important for I think those of us who desperately want peace, who see war as, at some level, a break-down, a manifestation of human weakness, to understand that sometimes it’s also necessary – and you know, to – to be able to balance two ideas at the same time; that we are constantly striving for peace, we are doubling up on our diplomacy, we are going to actively engage, we are going to try to see the world through other people’s eyes and not just our own.

No, [the U.S.] has made it clear that we consider a peaceful resolution an essential aspect of American foreign policy. This I believe to be a situation understood by China, but again, it is important to not sound too truculent. Taking on a billion-plus Chinese is not an enterprise which one should enter lightly.