Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.
– Anne Bradstreet
A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age.
– Robert Frost
A fanatic is a person who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.
– Sir Winston Churchill
A diplomat is a man who remembers a lady’s birthday but forgets her age.
– Anonymous
Choose your friends carefully. Your enemies will choose you.
– Yassir Arafat
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
– Plato
Diplomacy is the art of letting someone have your way.
– Daniele Vare
Integrity has no need of rules.
– Albert Camus
Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
– John Stuart Mill
You cannot become a truly effective advocate unless you know all sides of your subject thoroughly, opposing arguments as well as your own.
– G. R. Capp
A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.
– Caskie Stinnett
International arbitration may be defined as the substitution of many burning questions for a smouldering one.
– Ambrose Bierce
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.
– Johann Wolfgang
This is the devilish thing about foreign affairs: they are foreign and will not always conform to our whims.
– James Reston
Negotiation in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree.
– Dean Acheson
Diplomacy means the art of nearly deceiving all your friends, but not quite deceiving all your enemies.
– Kofi Busia
Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness.
– Otto von Bismarck
Conferences at the top level are always courteous. Name calling is left to the foreign ministers.
– W. Averell Harriman
The principle of give and take is the principle of diplomacy–give one and take ten.
– Mark Twain
A diplomat’s life is made up of three ingredients: protocol, Geritol and alcohol.
– Adlai Stevenson