No nation should stoke instability in its neighbor’s country.

As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I know that the men and women of our intelligence community put their lives on the line every day, and they do very dangerous work to keep our country safe.

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

I think you can judge from somebody’s actions a kind of a stability and sense of purpose perhaps created by strong religious roots. I mean, there’s a certain patience, a certain discipline, I think, that religion helps you achieve.

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

Law is always better than war.

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.

The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts.

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

The U.S. military is not war weary. Our military draws strength from confronting our enemies when clear policy objectives are set and we are fully resourced for the fight.

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.

Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

Your emotions are very unstable and should never be the foundation for direction in your life.

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.

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.

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

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

I don’t know a country in the world that doesn’t have borders and doesn’t want to know who is coming into their country.

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.

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.

The Iranians have shot down drones. They tried to destroy the Saudi oil fields. They tried to storm our embassy. So, when my Democratic friends say we need appeasement, well appeasement hasn’t worked. And I think that we’ve learned, with respect to Iran, that weakness invites the wolves.

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.

ISIS is not an existential threat to something happening to someone in the United States of America. It’s a serious problem overseas, but it’s confusing and frightening.

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

In a world of complex threats, our security and leadership depends on all elements of our power – including strong and principled diplomacy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I’m happy that I have my family, and I’m happy that I had Virginia, where I grew up, to retreat to any time I felt overwhelmed. Whenever there were times when I felt like the rug was being pulled out from under me and I was floating in this crazy space, I would stop and go back to that neighborhood and realize nothing’s changed, really.

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

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

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

You get a reputation for stability if you are stable for years.

War is never a lasting solution for any problem.

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

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

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.

The people of the world genuinely want peace. Some day the leaders of the world are going to have to give in and give it to them.

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.

If your payloads cost hundreds of millions of dollars, they actually cost more than the launch. It puts a lot of pressure on the launch vehicle not to change, to be very stable. Reliability becomes much more important than the cost. It’s hard to get off of that equilibrium.

Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.

In an interconnected age when opportunistic adversaries can work in tandem to destroy stability and prosperity, our country needs to regain its strategic footing. We need to bring the clarity to our efforts before we lose the confidence of the American people and the support of potential allies.

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

If you’re in favour of any policy – reform, revolution, stability, regression, whatever – if you’re at least minimally moral, it’s because you think it’s somehow good for people. And good for people means conforming to their fundamental nature.

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

The economy’s always been the engine for our national security.

We make war that we may live in peace.

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.

Stability is when the U.K. and U.S. invade a country and impose the regime of their choice.

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

When Nirvana became popular, you could very easily slip and get lost during that storm. I fortunately had really heavy anchors – old friends, family.

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

America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

War settles nothing.

Global energy security is a vital part of America’s national security.

People respond in accordance to how you relate to them. If you approach them on the basis of violence, that’s how they’ll react. But if you say, ‚We want peace, we want stability,‘ we can then do a lot of things that will contribute towards the progress of our society.

Move fast with stable infrastructure.

President Assad, I worked with. I know him reasonably well, met with him a few times, and he’s a liar.