Kersti Kaljulaid Quotes

Our public dealings with the Russians can hardly lead to any clear and satisfactory results unless they are preceded by preparatory discussions of the most secret and delicate nature.

The first rule of negotiations is that normally you have to give to get.

You know what I gave to Russia? You know what I gave? Nothing.

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.

It was a mutual thing. I made a deal with them: I asked them if they did not bring out the place card of Malachi, I would let them have two minutes with each one of my patients.

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.

When the ambassadors of other foreign countries come to Japan to make treaties, they can be told that such and such a treaty has been made with the ambassador of the United States, and they will rest satisfied with this.

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.

Oh, you know. I am secretary of state. My trips aren't successful. I just talk to people.

If I write in my name to the agents of England and France residing in Asia and inform them that Japan is ready to make a commercial treaty with their countries, the number of steamers will be reduced from fifty to two or three.

Players have a great deal of flexibility when conducting diplomatic relations with their allies.

Every diplomatic breakthrough is preceded by a crisis, but not every crisis leads to a breakthrough.

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

Ambassador: In diplomacy, an officer sent into a foreign country as the visible embodiment of his sovereign's hostility.

Let us have frankness before the handshake.

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

It is doubtful if anyone could recount a single instance in which a rupture of diplomatic relations has ever brought any benefit to the government that initiated the break.

Congress has a constitutional right to an authoritative voice in declaring and prescribing the foreign policy of the United States. It is the constitutional duty of the Executive Department to respect that policy, not less in diplomatic negotiations than in the use of national force when authorized by law.

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 reasons for disliking diplomacy are legion. Engaging in serious diplomacy would mean reviewing the way Washington advocates for and deploys its principles. It might necessitate a glance in the mirror and asking why the United States believes it is uniquely empowered to interpret the Creator's higher purpose for people in other lands.

If any agreement between two nations is to last, it must serve the best interests of both nations.

… the principle of give and take--give one and take ten--the principle of diplomacy.

Why don’t you ask us to grant you bases?

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

… peace to be durable, must be founded on stipulations equally beneficial to both parties, the one claiming nothing which it is not willing to grant the other; and on this basis alone will its attainment or preservation by this government be desirable.