It’s a near miracle that nuclear war has so far been avoided.

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.

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

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

The United States is supplying the most modern and sophisticated weaponry to Israel to the tune of billions of dollars every year.

The appropriate response to terrorist crimes is police work, which has been successful worldwide.

There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.

Ronald Reagan used to alarm his Soviet counterparts by saying that surely they’d both unite against an invasion from Mars.

Leadership is absolutely vital if there are comparable countries which can affect the security of the world you live in. Between Lincoln and Roosevelt’s time, America was protected by huge oceans and, in practice, by the British navy. Today, it’s different, and the obsession of the Obama administration has been for retrenchment.

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 have always seen the United States as a force of good. And I have learned that there is the idealistic part about what we can do at the U.N. and there is a doable part. And I have learned what is more doable.

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

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

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

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.

Putin sought to keep Ukraine weak through corruption.

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.

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

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.

The many questions about the bombing of Yugoslavia by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation – meaning primarily the United States – come down to two fundamental issues: ‚What are the accepted and applicable ‚rules of world order,‘ and how do these apply in the case of Kosovo?‘

Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.

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

NATO has been a thread throughout my life.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

China and the U.S. need each other very badly. Yes, we should argue about some things, but it’s not an ‚us versus them,‘ it’s an ‚us and them‘ type scenario.

Foreign policy is like human relations, only people know less about each other.

Foreigners don’t want to invest any more in France – and this is not working.

Diplomacy is the art of saying ‚Nice doggie‘ until you can find a rock.

War settles nothing.

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

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

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.

There are nuclear-weapons-free zones in several parts of the world already, except that they’re not implemented fully, because the U.S. won’t allow it.

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

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

Although I don’t like the way the Chinese do business, I continue to do business in China. I have to. They’re the next world power.

Japan is an important ally of ours. Japan and the United States of the Western industrialized capacity, 60 percent of the GNP, two countries. That’s a statement in and of itself.

War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.

We can best help you to prevent war not by repeating your words and following your methods but by finding new words and creating new methods.

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.

We should pass the U.N.’s Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. At least it will clearly establish whom you view as a terrorist and whom you don’t. We need to delink terrorism from religion – to isolate terrorists who use this interchange of arguments between terrorism and religion.

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.

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

I want the troops from Great Britain and the U.S. to be successful, but by the same token, Afghanistan has always been a screw-up.

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

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

For 2,500 years, India has never invaded anybody.

Politics is the womb in which war develops.

The United States is a violent military state. It’s been involved in military action all over the place.

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.

It makes sense for Japan to pursue a more independent role in the world, following Latin America and others in freeing itself from U.S. domination.

A war with Pakistan would be an utter disaster.

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.

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.

The global importance of the Middle East is that it keeps the Far East and the Near East from encroaching on each other.