Benjamin Harrison Quotes

Successful diplomats must always be conscious of other parties' need to know how an agreement serves their interests and how it can be sold back home.

The government of Mexico and the Mexican people do not have to accept provisions that one government unilaterally wants to impose on the other.

And we ought to work our diplomacy first and I think it's a reason it's going to respond increasingly to our diplomacy particularly with the president's direct involvement in the peace process, and I think that's extraordinarily important.

You can’t outsource diplomacy. You can’t do it unless you do it.

We do not want to tie ourselves ... to the United States, because she is unreliable ... and her statesmen do not know the mind of their own country.

Americans, who are naive and inexperienced, are up against centuries of diplomatic skill and finesse.

Tell the Arch-Duchess that she may boss her own immigrants, but she can't boss the American consul.

Diplomacy, contrary to the current misconception, is not about making nice, exchanging happy talk, and offering concessions. It is the engine that converts raw energy and tangible power into meaningful political results. In other words, diplomacy is all about the intelligent use of power. Diplomacy is not an alternative to coercion and other forms of power; its effectiveness depends on their skillful use.

Dollar Diplomacy

The Republics of Colombia, of Mexico, and of Central America have already deputed plenipotentiaries to … a meeting, and they have invited the United States to be also represented there by their ministers. The invitation has been accepted, and ministers on the part of the United States will be commissioned to attend at those deliberations, and to take part in them so far as may be compatible with that neutrality from which it is neither our intention nor the desire of the other American States that we should depart.

Diplomacy is tough, slogging, slow work—and hard work.

Remembering the numerous proofs of your Majesty's friendship and that of your predecessors, and the friendly attitude of England in 1870, and the proof of friendship she has just given us again, I make a supreme appeal to the diplomatic intervention of your Majesty's Government to safeguard the integrity of Belgium. Diplomatic intervention took place last week on our part. What can diplomatic intervention do now? We have great and vital interests in the independence -- and integrity is the least part -- of Belgium.

It will be quite satisfactory if you open them gradually, as the circumstances may require; but the President assures you that this will not be the case if you make a treaty with England first.

The world of high-stakes international diplomacy can be rough and tumble, but it's more often than not a procession of suits and summits, protocol sessions and photo ops.

Our alliances and our credibility are crucial elements of our working capital in advancing America's interests in the world, and they have been eroded over the last four years.

As far as we were concerned, we were operators, we were administrators. I don't ever recall going to Dean Acheson and asking for any counsel or advice on administration, but I had the greatest respect for him, as I have today.

What I've learned, and will try to remember from now on, is that defending your country's credibility is never sufficient reason to fight a war.

First, we could have defied both of them and could have gone to war against both of these nations for this violation of international law and interference with our neutral rights.

During the past few years I have led a sometimes hard battle for German foreign policy.

Richard Holbrooke is known for many things, but I will remember him as an impressive, sometimes even intimidating diplomat who understood the value of culture in diplomacy.

From 8,000 miles away... I would not judge a fellow soldier from a friendly nation and how they are employing their resources.

Throughout history, ambassadors have always been symbolic incarnations of the sovereignty of their nations and the dignity of their leaders.

The president of the United States and his secretary of state were made honorary Hebrews.

I think that the president of Iran has the authority wherever which - where - wherever the national interests of the country are involved and, when it is necessary and expedient and required to speak and talk with others in order to promote the rights of its nation, that the president can take that initiative.

The United States' administrations... must recognize that Iran is a big power. Having said that, we consider ourselves to be a human force and a cultural power and hence a friend of other nations. We have never sought to dominate others or to violate the rights of any other country.