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

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.

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

Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.

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.

War is what happens when language fails.

Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat.

War settles nothing.

I remember the last three days that I was president, I never went to bed at all. I never went to bed until we had negotiated the final release of the hostages.

The crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and elsewhere, particularly Lebanon, are so shocking that the only emotionally valid reaction is rage and a call for extreme actions. But that does not help the victims. And, in fact, it’s likely to harm them.

Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this.

All wars signify the failure of conflict resolution mechanisms, and they need post-war rebuilding of faith, trust and confidence.

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

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

Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.

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.

It is true that the king has made a truce with the duke of Burgundy for fifteen days and that the duke is to turn over the city of Paris at the end of fifteen days. Yet you should not marvel if I do not enter that city so quickly.

Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.

When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff.

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.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.

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

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

Compassionate listening is to help the other side suffer less. If we realize that other people are the same people as we are, we are no longer angry at them.

If you’re yelling you’re the one who’s lost control of the conversation.

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

War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.

The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another – until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

The bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is the only one that is apt to be repeated.

If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, then we will have destroyed the foundation of the organization and our best hope of establishing a world order.

Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.

All we are saying is give peace a chance.

You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it.

I’ve never fought with anyone. A lot of people talk to me, and they’re like, ‚Oh, you would have been fighting all the time when you were younger,‘ but I’m like, ‚I never fought with anyone because I always knew that if I hurt myself, I might lose important time in my cricket career,‘ so I never got into any fight, ever in my life.

I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

I’m not somebody that just wants to hold up a white flag and say, ‚Let’s all just get along.‘ I think people that do horrible things should be held accountable.

If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.

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

Our numbers have increased in Vietnam because the aggression of others has increased in Vietnam. There is not, and there will not be, a mindless escalation.

When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.

The people who truly know me know what I’m like. There have been people who try to say things that aren’t fair, and I check them. And then they don’t like me because I checked them.

The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is, to let him show himself what he is and steal out of your company.

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.

We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace.

An unjust peace is better than a just war.

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.

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

My constant prayer, my number one foreign goal, is to bring peace to Israel. And in the process to Israel’s neighbours.

Any negotiated, peaceful solution to the problems between the United States and peoples, or any people of Latin America, which does not imply force or the use of force, must be addressed in accordance with international principles and norms.

In every country except – industrial country except the United States, the government uses its massive purchasing power to negotiate drug prices. That’s one of the reasons prices are so much higher in the United States than in other countries.

The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.

It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.

But I do not believe that the world would be entirely different if there were more women leaders. Maybe if everybody in leadership was a woman, you might not get into the conflicts in the first place. But if you watch the women who have made it to the top, they haven’t exactly been non-aggressive – including me.

I learned a great many years ago that in a fight between husband and wife, a third party should never get between the woman’s skillet and the man’s ax-helve.

I don’t understand why or how we can bully each other.

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

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.

If you get down and quarell everyday, you’re saying prayers to the devil, I say.