No one gives a damn what Iran thinks on any significant issue. The only reason Iran is at the big boys‘ table is because of their nuclear weapons program.

War is never a lasting solution for any problem.

Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.

There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

I am confident my Hindutva face will be an asset when dealing with foreign affairs with other nations.

There was never a good war, or a bad peace.

Throughout my career, I learned plenty about war on the battlefield, but I learned even more about the importance of finding peace. And that is what the State Department and U.S.A.I.D. do: prevent the wars that we can avoid so that we fight only the ones we must.

Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it… You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.

War is not an exercise of the will directed at an inanimate matter.

I think the Iranians are clearly determined to have a nuclear program. And we have to assume that with a nuclear program they have the capability and the will to create a nuclear weapon.

I have spoken to Chinese leaders occasionally on human rights, but I’ve always done it in private.

A lot of people think international relations is like a game of chess. But it’s not a game of chess, where people sit quietly, thinking out their strategy, taking their time between moves. It’s more like a game of billiards, with a bunch of balls clustered together.

People are finding it harder and harder to relate to foreign policy.

Unlike Iran, Israel refuses to allow inspections at all, refuses to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, has hundreds of nuclear weapons, has advanced delivery systems.

I am often asked if, when I was secretary, I had problems with foreign men. That is not who I had problems with, because I arrived in a very large plane that said United States of America. I had more problems with the men in our own government.

Our position is that we do not accept conditions of any kind which may affect the independence and sovereignty of our country just with the view to solve economic problems existing between the United States and Cuba.

In 1979, Iranians carried out an illegitimate act: They overthrew a tyrant that the United States had imposed and supported, and moved on an independent path, not following U.S. orders.

Our diplomacy and development budget is not just about reducing spending and finding efficiencies. We need a frank conversation about what we stand for as that ‚shining city on a hill.‘ And that conversation begins by acknowledging that we can’t do it on the cheap.

Nowhere is it written that there must be conflict between the United States and China.

To say that the United States has pursued diplomacy with North Korea is a little bit misleading. It did under the Clinton administration, though neither side completely lived up to their obligations. Clinton didn’t do what was promised, nor did North Korea, but they were making progress.

The U.S. – the idea that the U.S. has introduced and imposed principles of international law, that’s hardly even a joke. The United States has even gone so far as to veto Security Council resolutions calling on all states to observe international law. That was in the 1980s under Reagan.

For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible – and no one can now doubt the word of America.

I don’t know why you use a fancy French word like detente when there’s a good English phrase for it – cold war.

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration?

The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts.

Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we’re spending in Pakistan, we’re spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?

The United States prefers that Iraq meet its obligations voluntarily, yet we are prepared for the alternative.

Now if there is one thing that we do worse than any other nation, it is try and manage somebody else’s affairs.

And so I think that the idea of America working with other countries to solve problems is good for us, and it is part of digging us out of the ‚my way or the highway‘ approach that was evident in the previous eight years.

Today I can declare my hope and declare it from the bottom of my heart that we will eventually see the time when that number of nuclear weapons is down to zero and the world is a much better place.

I would heartily welcome the union of East and West provided it is not based on brute force.

Today, India is a nuclear weapons state.

You probably don’t need more weapons than what’s required to destroy every city on earth. There’s only 2,300 cities. So, the United States, by that criteria, only needs 2,300 nuclear weapons – well, we’ve got more than 25,000!

We have practiced diplomacy since the very beginning of the nation. Sometimes it has not worked, and we’ve had to go to war. I always believe you should try to find peace and reconciliation before conflict. That has been the approach I’ve taken.

Let us move from the era of confrontation to the era of negotiation.

No foreign policy – no matter how ingenious – has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none.

In 1962, war was avoided by Khrushchev’s willingness to accept Kennedy’s hegemonic demands.

Although September 11 was horrible, it didn’t threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do.

Saddam’s goal is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed.

Unlike Europe, China can’t be intimidated. Europe backs down if the United States looks at it the wrong way. But China, they’ve been there for 3,000 years and are paying no attention to the barbarians and don’t see any need to.

War is never a solution; it is an aggravation.

Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.

I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking to any leader – or any person – in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks.

Nobody’s ever said that pins are a tool of diplomacy.

We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the manner of yielding what is impossible to keep.

I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.

Fifty years of isolating Cuba had failed to promote democracy, setting us back in Latin America. That’s why we restored diplomatic relations, opened the door to travel and commerce, and positioned ourselves to improve the lives of the Cuban people.

I do believe that in order to be a successful negotiator that as a diplomat, you have to be able to put yourself into the other person’s shoes. Unless you can understand what is motivating them, you are never going to be able to figure out how to solve a particular problem.

I believe mutual respect for one another and cooperation should be the basis for relationships with foreign nations.

India can live without nuclear weapons. That’s our dream, and it should be the dream of the U.S. also.

I have a scheme for stopping war. It’s this – no nation is allowed to enter a war till they have paid for the last one.

To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.

Law is always better than war.

No nation should threaten its neighbors by massing troops along the border.

Iran has little capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrines are defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to set it.

Well, the thing that I learned as a diplomat is that human relations ultimately make a huge difference.

War settles nothing.

The Iranian regime, in my mind, is the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East.

No matter how hard we might wish, we will not be able to transform China’s behavior overnight.

Diplomacy is listening to what the other guy needs. Preserving your own position, but listening to the other guy. You have to develop relationships with other people so when the tough times come, you can work together.