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

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

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.

Many things shall change in Cuba, but they shall change because of our efforts and despite the United States. Perhaps that empire shall crumble first.

When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, the U.N. vetoed several resolutions right away, calling for an end to the fighting and so on, and that was a hideous invasion.

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

People are finding it harder and harder to relate to foreign policy.

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?‘

I am confident my Hindutva face will be an asset when dealing with foreign affairs with other nations.

Egypt is the second-largest recipient over a long period of U.S. military and economic aid. Israel is first.

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

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.

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

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.

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 U.N. bureaucracy has grown to elephantine proportions. Now that the Cold War is over, we are asking that elephant to do gymnastics.

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

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.

This was not an act of terrorism, but it was an act of war.

Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder.

Putin sought to keep Ukraine weak through corruption.

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

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.

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.

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

You think that the heads of state only have serious conversations, but they actually often begin really with the weather or, ‚I really like your tie.‘

When I was elected President nobody asked me to negotiate between Israel and Egypt. It was not even a question raised in my campaign. But I felt that one of the reasons that I was elected President was to try to bring peace to the Holy Land.

The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts.

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.

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

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

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.

Everybody has forgotten that Russia helped start the Second World War.

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

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

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

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.

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.

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.

In 1963, the U.N. Security Council declared a voluntary arms embargo on South Africa. That was extended to a mandatory embargo in 1977. And that was followed by economic sanctions and other measures – sometimes officials, countries, cities, towns – some organized by popular movements.

Quite frankly, Russian aggression in Ukraine and its illegal occupation of Crimea remind us that we still have a good deal more work to do to guarantee the strategic vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace.

Other than being crazy enough to press a button, there is nothing that Putin can do militarily to fundamentally alter American interests.

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.

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.

There’s not going to be a World War III, because there is no one to have World War III with.

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

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

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

For more than four decades, the Libyan people have been ruled by a tyrant – Moammar Gaddafi. He has denied his people freedom, exploited their wealth, murdered opponents at home and abroad, and terrorized innocent people around the world – including Americans who were killed by Libyan agents.

The only defensible war is a war of defense.

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

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

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.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.