Diplomatic Skill Quotes

I would like to be George Clooney diplomatic. I just don't have the wherewithal yet or the inner serenity.

First of all, just because the Tea Party people appear to be generally uneducated, ignorant about the political process, ignorant about economics, confused about their own platform from the beginning, and indelicate when it comes to the craft of diplomacy, doesn't mean they're wrong.

The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.

[A politician is] a person skilled in the art of compromise. Usually an elected official who has compromised to get nominated, compromised to get elected, and compromised repeatedly to stay in office.

What can be said of George H. W. Bush beyond the personal accolades is that, as president, he was a man who did nothing by half measures. He was hands-on, engaged, and thought deeply and seriously about the purpose of the nation.

It is a little bit humiliating when I have to say that Chou En-lai to me appears as the most superior brain I have so far met in the field of foreign politics... so much more dangerous than you imagine because he is so much better a man than you have ever admitted.

Amazing what the British do with language; the nuances of politeness. The world's great diplomats, surely.

It is a great art to be superior to others without letting them know it.

A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship.

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

To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill

Tact is the discrimination of differences. It consists in conscious deviations.

I saw Mr. Lincoln a number of times during the canvass for his second election. The characteristic which struck me most was his superabundance of common sense. His power of managing men, of deciding and avoiding difficult questions, surpassed that of any man I ever met.

To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy.

My problem is I cannot be manipulative and diplomatic. And to survive on a show like BB,' you have to be very smart. I cannot put so much pressure on my mind. It will be a mental pressure on me.

Ensuring we have the best possible Brexit deal will take time, effort and huge diplomatic skill.

A diplomat is one that says something that is equally misunderstood by both sides, and never clear to either.

Silence and tact may or may not be the same thing.

I maintain that many an inventor, many a diplomat, many a financier is a sounder philosopher than all those who practice the dull craft of experimental psychology.

The Politician uses the language of diplomacy of which he is a master, and it consists in telling some of the truth without necessarily exhausting it.

He had somehow, with all his modesty, the rare faculty of controlling his superiors as well as his subordinates. He outfaced Stanton, captivated the President, and even compelled acquiescence or silence from that dread source of paralyzing power, the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War.