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.

We have always said that in our war with the Arabs we had a secret weapon – no alternative.

A siege is an act of war.

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.

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.

War is the domain of physical exertion and suffering.

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

So while I will never minimize the costs involved in military action, I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America.

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

I love it when Muslims go to war with each other, as I do when the Christians do, because it shows there’s no such thing as the Christian world and the Islamic world. That’s all crap.

Let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. It will be a strong friend of Israel’s under a McCain administration. It will be a strong friend of Israel’s under an Obama administration. So that policy is not going to change.

Our passions are like convulsion fits, which, though they make us stronger for a time, leave us the weaker ever after.

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.

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.

For me, my secularism is, India first. I say, the philosophy of my party is ‚Justice to all. Appeasement to none.‘ This is our secularism.

The invasion of Iraq, particularly, gave a big shot in the arm to the jihadi extremists.

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.

An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.

Drones are just another weapon, and they turn out to be a very effective weapon that puts no American troops at risk, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t use them against identified enemy targets.

Israel is a pretty crazy state.

Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.

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

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

War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.

In 1949, China declared independence – an event known in Western discourse as ‚the loss of China‘ in the U.S. – with bitter recriminations and conflict over who was responsible for that loss.

I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

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.

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war.

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

War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

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.

The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries.

The West Bank is essentially imprisoned.

The Iranian government is undoubtedly a severe danger to its own population, but not beyond that.

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.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

In countries where innocent people are dying, the leaders are following their blood rather than their brains.

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

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

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.

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.

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.

Battle is an orgy of disorder.

Mutability of temper and inconsistency with ourselves is the greatest weakness of human nature.

A diplomatic solution that puts significant and verifiable constraints on Iran’s nuclear program represents the best and most sustainable chance to ensure that America, Israel, the entire Middle East will never be menaced by a nuclear-armed Iran.

Woman begins by resisting a man’s advances and ends by blocking his retreat.

After many years of great mercy, after tasting of the powers of the world to come, we still are so weak, so foolish; but, oh! when we get away from self to God, there all is truth and purity and holiness, and our heart finds peace, wisdom, completeness, delight, joy, victory.

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

To say that the United States has pursued diplomacy with North Korea is a little bit misleading. It did under the Clinton administration, though neither side completely lived up to their obligations. Clinton didn’t do what was promised, nor did North Korea, but they were making progress.

You can’t say civilization don’t advance… in every war they kill you in a new way.

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.

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

Drones overall will be more impactful than I think people recognize, in positive ways to help society.

All cruelty springs from weakness.

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.

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 have spoken to Chinese leaders occasionally on human rights, but I’ve always done it in private.

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

Israelis would mostly breathe a sigh of relief if Palestinians were to disappear.

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.