Willie Sutton Quotes

You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.

Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.

You can't go to a negotiating table pointing a gun, but you've got to keep it over your shoulder.

You can't do anything if a person says no. In such a case, there's nothing you can do - unlike the popular cliche that pressure is exerted, or that maybe an unwilling source is done away with.

Unless you’re prepared to use force, it’s very difficult to deal with a person who understands only force.

It’s better to negotiate with a soft voice and a loaded gun, than to negotiate with just a soft voice.

There’s no reason to respect anyone’s word in that part of the world. The only thing they respect is force and the threat of force.

There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic. Force or persuasion. Those who know that they cannot win by means of logic, have always resorted to guns.

Soft power … cannot accomplish much in the absence of a willingness to use hard power.

The most important thing about power is to make sure you don't have to use it.

Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.

President Obama thinks he can use emotion to bring pressure on Congress. But that's not how adults with power respond to things.

You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force you can get a lot more done

America’s power to intervene effectively overseas depends on its power to persuade and not merely coerce. The power to persuade depends on a willingness to be persuaded. And that willingness depends, ultimately, on America’s willingness to entertain the prospect that it is wrong.

Diplomacy and force are two sides of the same coin.

Diplomacy, is persuasion in the shadow of power.

Success in diplomacy is often most advantageous when it is incomplete, an adversary needs an honorable path of retreat if we are to achieve our main policy goals through the reputation of our power rather than through the actual use of force.

Deals, flattery, threats and promises are part of the process, certainly; do not flinch from any opportunity to scheme and plot, however sordid and demeaning it may appear.

Hard power makes sense under some circumstances. But there's not a universal solution to global problems.

Men resort to talking only when they haven't the power to enforce their convictions upon others.

Speak softly and employ a huge man with a crowbar.

Jane! will you hear reason?' (he stooped and approached his lips to my ear) 'because, if you won't, I'll try violence.

I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.

Half of this business is politics. As real estate developers, it's our job to go in there and get beat up.

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