We can not play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent.

Russia isn’t going to start a war. They can’t afford it. I think Mr. Putin can be dealt with if we stop screaming at him. You can work with the guy. You just have to know who he is.

The doctrine that everything is fine as long as the population is quiet, that applies in the Middle East, applies in Central America, it applies in the United States.

For a sitting U.S. president to see our allies as freeloaders is nuts.

I long remained a child, and I am still one in many respects.

It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.

There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.

Optimism means better than reality; pessimism means worse than reality. I’m a realist.

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.

We make war that we may live in peace.

If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you.

A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.

We prefer world law in the age of self-determination to world war in the age of mass extermination.

Following the missile crisis, detente started to gain ground between the United States and the Soviet Union, so the international political climate improved after that.

A war is a horrible thing, but it’s also a unifier of countries.

We live in an inter-dependent world. An isolated India is not in our interest.

The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.

Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week.

From my intimate discussions with President Obama, it is evident that India figures significantly in American geo-political, economic and strategic thinking. India is the largest democracy in the world.

America’s promises do not come with a price tag. We meet our commitments. We bear our burdens. That’s one of the reasons why almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago when I took office.

It is my view that we cannot conduct foreign policy at the extremes.

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

There’s not going to be a World War III, because there is no one to have World War III with.

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.

No other country in the world does what we do. On every issue, the world turns to us, not simply because of the size of our economy or our military might – but because of the ideals we stand for, and the burdens we bear to advance them.

Whenever you do something, people try to re-do it and do a better version, especially if they’re in another country.

A lack of realism in the vision today costs credibility tomorrow.

The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts.

Putin sought to keep Ukraine weak through corruption.

I think it is important for Europe to understand that even though I am president and George Bush is not president, Al Qaeda is still a threat.

Israel is a pretty crazy state.

Certainly I’ll never be able to put myself in the situation that people growing up in the less developed countries are in. I’ve gotten a bit of a sense of it by being out there and meeting people and talking with them.

If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.

If you want to appeal to everyone, you can’t do a world tour and expect black people to show up at every date – when you’re in Australia, when you’re in Dubai, when you’re in Indonesia.

Law is always better than war.

Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.

I’ve known and continue to know every one of these major world leaders by their first names, and I have access to them.

The first step towards vice is to shroud innocent actions in mystery, and whoever likes to conceal something sooner or later has reason to conceal it.

For more than four decades, the Libyan people have been ruled by a tyrant – Moammar Gaddafi. He has denied his people freedom, exploited their wealth, murdered opponents at home and abroad, and terrorized innocent people around the world – including Americans who were killed by Libyan agents.

I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.

It cannot be too often stressed that Israel had no credible pretext for its 2008-9 attack on Gaza, with full U.S. support and illegally using U.S. weapons.

In various countries and times, leaders of groups that lagged behind, economically and educationally, have taught their followers to blame all their problems on other people – and to hate those other people.

Don’t make me into this airy-fairy, moralist, idealist because I’m not.

The government of Israel doesn’t like the kinds of things I say, which puts them into the same category as every other government in the world.

We should not look at terrorism from the nameplates – which group they belong to, what is their geographical location, who are the victims. These individual groups or names will keep changing. Today you are looking at the Taliban or ISIS; tomorrow you might be looking at another name.

The target of preventive war must have several characteristics. It must be virtually defenceless; it must be important enough to be worth the trouble; it must be possible to portray it as the ultimate evil and an imminent threat to our survival.

I’m more of a realist when it comes to life, and I’d much rather my mother be in a spiritual place in Heaven than in a bed, sick, fighting for her life.

Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being.

We are moving towards a world that is reordering itself and that may appear more ordered at some periods of time, but I see no sign that we are moving towards a world order in my definition of it – namely, a system which is accepted, which is internalized by the majority of the key participants.

This was not an act of terrorism, but it was an act of war.

I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid.

U.S. analysts estimate that Russian military expenditures have tripled during the Bush-Putin years, in large measure a predicted reaction to the Bush administration’s militancy and aggressiveness.

God never meant that people were to wear clothes. He meant we were to be nude. But we were in a state of innocence. Then sin came into the human race and became a blood poisoning.

In the affairs of this world, men are saved not by faith, but by the want of it.

And in real life endings aren’t always neat, whether they’re happy endings, or whether they’re sad endings.

An honest man is always a child.

A war with Pakistan would be an utter disaster.

The Soviet government is the most realistic regime in the world – no ideals.

The fact is, with every friendship you make, and every bond of trust you establish, you are shaping the image of America projected to the rest of the world. That is so important. So when you study abroad, you’re actually helping to make America stronger.

Information helps you to see that you’re not alone. That there’s somebody in Mississippi and somebody in Tokyo who all have wept, who’ve all longed and lost, who’ve all been happy. So the library helps you to see, not only that you are not alone, but that you’re not really any different from everyone else.

In 1963, the U.N. Security Council declared a voluntary arms embargo on South Africa. That was extended to a mandatory embargo in 1977. And that was followed by economic sanctions and other measures – sometimes officials, countries, cities, towns – some organized by popular movements.