Tony Blankley Quotes

When diplomats meet, they are, of necessity, ambiguous, in order to get an agreement.

The language of any joint statement between two countries is mulled over many times before it becomes final.

Take a look at the way that Trump has described some of the foreign countries that we deal with - some that are allies and some that are not. China is one example. He said they were currency manipulators, but after he sat down with President Xi and had a piece of chocolate cake, he then said they were no longer currency manipulators.

In most cases, cables are marked secret not because the U.S. requires it but because those speaking to us - the foreign leaders across the table - do. They are not keeping secrets from us, but from two other groups: their enemies and their subjects.

Diplomats were invented simply to waste time.

It's a necessary quality of a diplomat or a politician that he will compromise. Uncompromising politicians or diplomats get you into the most terrible trouble.

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

To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.

In the world of diplomacy, some things are better left unsaid.

We always have hoped that American diplomacy deploys itself in dialogue and persuasion rather than by ultimatums. That is the path we want in international relations.

Nobody's ever said that pins are a tool of diplomacy.

I don't think that anybody should be ruling in or ruling out anything while we are conducting diplomacy.

The old diplomat liked to move with deliberation, in secret, following well-established traditions and working through what he loved to describe as "the usual channels". To him, the open debate carried on, not by professional diplomats, but by politicians and statesmen having little regard for the use of the technical phraseology of diplomacy and intent merely on reaching results which would make diplomacy unnecessary, was offensive to all his instincts.

The most important thing that the person at the White House knows when he talks to you is that you are not in there.

If you’ve been negotiating for 6 or 7 months and people come up with new ideas, it’s very bad.

I will not comment [to the press] on the negotiations. Every comment produces an hour of recriminations [among the negotiators.]

The art of diplomacy is to take your humiliations in private.

I must say I hate our diplomats. I think with few exceptions they are arrogant humbugs and I expect they know it.

We have had enough of meetings for meetings’ sake in the Middle East.

A diplomat is one that says something that is equally misunderstood by both sides, and never clear to either.

I know the pros and cons of not being diplomatic.

I love to negotiate things, I do it really well, and all that stuff. But it's possible I won't be able to get along with Putin.

I have to be as much diplomat as a photographer.

Diplomacy is unfashionable in the world of knee-jerk reaction and the dogmatic sound bite on television.

I must have dialogue with the Chinese government, and dialogue requires compromise. Therefore, I'm speaking for genuine self-rule, not for independence.