Ralph E. Flanders Quotes

I will deal with the politicians in a political way and with the nonpoliticians in a nonpolitical way.

Diplomacy is letting someone else have your way.

The art of government is the art of negotiating and compromise.

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

Lord Salisbury and myself have brought you back peace – but a peace I hope with honour.

Force is not inevitable. Diplomacy is still the desired means. Pressure is an element of the means.

As a member of Congress, I'm often reminded that in baseball, as in diplomacy, you have to know when to hit, when to run, and when to show grace.

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

Diplomacy is the art of letting somebody else have your way.

Boundary and peace treaties are not inspired documents.

Negotiations are the most essential tool of statecraft.

Success of negotiations cannot be guaranteed. If there is no attempt, then failure is guaranteed.

Diplomacy takes time.

No two men ever devised plans of action to accomplish a particular object without finding that there were differences in their plans. That is peculiarly the case in international affairs.

Politics is the art of making wha appearts to be impossible possible.

I'm well aware of the pragmatism of politics.

Part of diplomacy is to open different definitions of self-interest.

Diplomacy and coalition-building are hard work and not easy for any president.

A broader reading of history shows that appeasement, no matter how it is labeled, never fulfills the hopes of the appeasers.

Politics and war are remarkably similar situations.

You do not get what you want. You get what you negotiate.

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.

The world cannot be governed without juggling.

Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force; one must know when to blend force with a maneuver, a blow with an agreement.