Ezra Pound Quotes

The way I work: I pick a country. I learn the political history - I mean I really learn it; I read until it sinks in. Once I read the political history, I can project and find the clandestine history. And then I people it with the characters.

U. S. Presidents have to play 3-dimensional chess. Every move on the horizontal board against an international adversary simultaneously moves a piece on the vertical board of domestic politics.

Reject treaties that weaken or encroach upon American sovereignty.

The political world is defined by relationships rather than transactions, and by numerous actors at home and abroad with independent power. Navigating such a world is difficult and precarious.

While we all want the U.N. to live up to its original intent and be the place where the world comes together to solve international problems, the reality is the U.N. isn't all that different from any other political body. Countries and individuals play to the cameras, create good theatre, and negotiate selfishly.

I think I would have a very, very good relationship with Putin. And I think I would have a very, very good relationship with Russia.

I meet with ambassadors from all countries in my role as a member of Congress, and you always have better relationships with those you actually personally get along with. That matters. So if there is chemistry between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, maybe that can bode for something.

Foreign relations is an open book-- generally a checkbook.

Global politics remains extremely complex and countries have different interests, which will also lead them to make what might seem as rather bizarre friends and allies.

There’s no more morality in world affairs, fundamentally, than there was at the time of Genghis Khan.

The United Nations will spearhead our efforts to manage the new conflicts (that afflict our world)... Yes the principles of the United Nations Charter are worth our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Given lesser opportunities, Kissinger would have done very well as a talk show host. Fortunately for him, although not so fortunately for the United States, he found his patron in Nelson Rockefeller instead of William Paley.

It's always a difficult time to be secretary general.

Donald Trump is an American presidential nominee who was describing Russia in terms that they haven't heard almost ever. And so there is a belief that Donald Trump would be a collaborative, willing and I think perhaps quite able partner.

The unfair composition of the Security Council is largely acknowledged. The principal defects are the anachronistic privileges of the five permanent members of the Council and the Council's insufficient representativeness.

In the period after the Second World War, there were still leaders in Europe who represented weak countries, but possessed a sense of global foreign policy. Nowadays, on the other hand, there are politicians who represent pretty powerful countries, but whose citizens are not prepared to sacrifice themselves for the state.

The international community has been extracting concessions from the weaker side suffering under the occupation. For decades, this strategy has done absolutely nothing for the Palestinians. Now they are demanding that Hamas go the same route. We will not accept that. Extracting concessions is not the key to achieving peace. Pressure must be exerted on the occupier.

Tomorrow you will say Donald Trump wants to get along with Russia, this is terrible! It's not terrible. It's good.

In the old days it would have been a relatively simple matter to have checked Hitler's territorial ambitions. All you'd have needed would have been the 1914 combination of Britain, France and Russia. Indeed, if such an alliance had acted decisively to defend Czechoslovakia in 1938, Hitler might even have been overthrown by his own military. But it was not to be.

The frenzy of nations is the statesmanship of fate.

I'm interested in politics, what's going on in the world, how people behave and how your life is often in the hands of other people.

Diplomats do not know how to negotiate, they only know how to keep their job.

We have to get tough with the Russians. They don't know how to behave. They are like bulls in a china shop. They are only 25 years old. We are over 100 and the British are centuries older. We have got to teach them how to behave.

Diplomacy is the velvet glove that cloaks the fist of power.

Ahmadinejad is just a buffoon, sort of a clown on the international scene who tries to be provocative so he can get his name in the paper and his face on television.