Evan G. Galbraith Quotes

Right, well I am, I was a career diplomat for 37 years from 1960 until 1997 during the early 1980s from 1981 to 1985 I was the United States Ambassador to Honduras.

My father had been in the German Diplomatic Service, and although he had been in the United States since World War II and out of diplomacy, it was something that was very much talked about in the family. So when I went to college, it was always my intention to try to get into the Foreign Service.

Over the last 40 years, more U. S. ambassadors than generals have been killed in the line of duty. But unlike this country's military, the U. S. Foreign Service is maligned, undercut and underutilized.

I had to leave the Foreign Service to do the two things I joined it to do—negotiate, and make policy.

In war time you will do almost anything. You just have to.

A diplomat these days is nothing but a head-waiter who's allowed to sit down occasionally.

I really wanted to be Ambassador to Argentina.

I was going to study at the Sorbonne and become a diplomat. Being a diplomat comes in handy when you are dealing with record companies.

I am a soldier and accustomed to risking my life every day. I am full of the fire of youth; I cannot act with the restraint of an accomplished diplomat.

One thing I know for sure: it is only by doing what we fear that we can ever truly learn to be brave.

Never to be frightened of taking risks and always follow your instincts!

Courage doesn't know what's around the corner, but goes around it anyway.

I really feel like if you can get past your fear, if you can say, "Uh-uh, I'm afraid to do that and I'm going to do it anyhow," that that's really the way to have a satisfying life moving forward. I think I had that kind of fearlessness even as a young person. It wasn't tempered by experience or wisdom, but it took me a long way.

I was accustomed to walking alone. I'd find other people who agreed with me, but they also said, "I wouldn't dare mention it." I was the only one who would say, "We've got to stand." And they said, "Well, yes. And after you make it safe, then I'll stand, too. But you have to make it safe."

The most important thing is to DARE.

To have faith requires courage, the ability to take a risk, the readiness even to accept pain and disappointment. Whoever insists on safety and security as primary conditions of life cannot have faith; whoever shuts himself off in a system of defense, where distance and possession are his means of security, makes himself a prisoner. To be loved, and to love, need courage, the courage to judge certain values as of ultimate concern – and to take the jump and to stake everything on these values.

Stay strong, be brave, love hard and true, and you will have nothing to lose.

Choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the tide.

Caution, Sir! I am eternally tired of hearing that word caution. It is nothing but the word of cowardice!

Courage is impulsive; it is narcissism tempered with nihilism.

The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-hell attitude.

The difference between a brave man and a coward is a coward thinks twice before jumping in the cage with a lion. The brave man doesn't know what a lion is. He just thinks he does.

Bravery in simple soldiers is a dangerous trade, to which they have bound themselves to get their livelihood.

Do you ever dangle your toes over the precipice, dare the cliff to crumble, defy the frozen deity to suffer the sun, thaw feather and bone, take wing to fly you home?

It's not enough to be nice in life. You've got to have nerve.