I used to wish there was a useful term for those of us who thought American power should be used to remove psychopathic dictators.

The only defensible war is a war of defense.

I don’t think the Tea Party people are racist, except maybe a tiny portion of them. But there has been a deliberate effort – again, referring to Fox Broadcasting – to inject the race issue into it. They have actually called Obama a racist on television.

Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.

More understand China, then more people will have interest in China and more people will come to China to visit us because I am a tourist ambassador.

I see Libya as a member of the Non-Aligned Movement and a sovereign State of the nearly 200 members of the United Nations.

I think that America’s recovery of a global strategic view is an absolutely essential element of our foreign policy.

You pick up some fans and a handful of haters along the way.

While the Chinese people, as a rule, are good people, my business dealings with Communist Chinese officials have left me disturbed and concerned about the rise of the Chinese Empire.

For somebody who loves foreign policy, being Secretary is the best job in the world – but it doesn’t happen twice.

Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions.

There is obviously a gap between the public’s perception of the role of U.S. foreign policy and the elite’s perception.

I’ve been talked about by a lot better people than the general public.

The truth of the matter is that Iran is a cancer.

The notion that it is improper to look beyond the borders of the United States in grappling with hard questions has a certain kinship to the view that the U.S. Constitution is a document essentially frozen in time as of the date of its ratification.

I don’t see the wisdom in modern politicians that I once saw in men like Dean Acheson, David Bruce, or George Marshall. In my day, the northeastern establishment dominated foreign policy formulation, but the composition and distribution of our population is very different today.

You know, if I listened to Michael Dukakis long enough, I would be convinced we’re in an economic downturn and people are homeless and going without food and medical attention and that we’ve got to do something about the unemployed.

I think the War on Terror is really absurd, especially coming from a country that is founded on terrorism.

I’ve never seen America as an imperialist or colonialist or meddling country.

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

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.

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

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.

How easy it is to govern when one follows a system of consulting the will of the people and one holds as the only norm all the actions which contribute to the well being of the people.

The Bush Administration’s failure to be consistently involved in helping Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians has been both wrong for our friendship with Israel, as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Arab world.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

The U.N. charter bars the threat of force.

War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.

Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.

When I was 18, I went to the Soviet Union. I kept hearing that America was planning to bomb them – lots of bombs were going to come down on these people. I went there not knowing anything, except that I thought the whole thing was stupid and that I wanted to see who these people were that we were going to bomb.

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

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?

Putin goes to bed at night knowing he can break all the rules, and the West will follow all the rules.

There’s backlash about everything I do.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.

International summits and organisations like WTO take decisions, which will bind us, and if we are not present in such summits, we may be hurt by the decisions taken.

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

The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments‘ plans.

History shows that, more often than not, loss of sovereignty leads to liberalisation imposed in the interests of the powerful.

We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe.

I think, under President Obama, who was a really bright guy – I didn’t agree with a lot of his politics – but we got to the point internationally where our friends didn’t trust us. They were confused. And our enemies didn’t quite respect us.

‚1984‘ is not a wonder tale. Not only could it happen, but it has happened, but under different names.

After 2014, we will support a unified Afghanistan as it takes responsibility for its own future.

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

In Romania, American forces have found a devoted NATO ally.

I’m doing more of my U.N. work and doing the African Union Summit and things like that.

Israel is a pretty crazy state.

We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.

The Russians feared Ike. They didn’t fear me.

Politics is the womb in which war develops.

The United States supports a strong, united Ukraine with productive and peaceful relationships with both the East and the West, with both Russia and Europe.

We are not trying to entertain the critics. I’ll take my chances with the public.

I don’t think that experience is a very useful or convincing attribute for a sensible foreign policy. Henry Kissinger had a lot of experience.

A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us.

We also can’t try to take over and rebuild every country that falls into crisis. That’s not leadership; that’s a recipe for quagmire, spilling American blood and treasure that ultimately weakens us. It’s the lesson of Vietnam, of Iraq – and we should have learned it by now.

In February 2004, the two traditional torturers of Haiti – France and the United States – combined to back a military coup and send President Aristide off to Africa. The U.S. denies him permission to return to the entire region.

NATO’s essentially run by the United States.

On the way back from Mumbai to go meet with President Xi in China, I stopped in Singapore to meet with a guy named Lee Kuan Yew, who most foreign policy experts around the world say is the wisest man in the Orient.

There ought to be one day – just one – when there is open season on senators.