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.

Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it.

I don’t like begging money from producers.

I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.

I don’t want followers.

Independence is a heady draught, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more.

I don’t kiss nobody’s butt.

I became a journalist partly so that I wouldn’t ever have to rely on the press for my information.

My main goal is to be a self-made man and have control over what’s mine.

Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I’m the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.

If you make up your own mind, you can only blame yourself.

I myself have been on my own and utterly independent since I graduated. I haven’t belonged to any company or any system. It isn’t easy to live like this in Japan.

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

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

We make war that we may live in peace.

I thought then, and I think now, that the invasion of Iraq was unnecessary and unjust. And I think the premises on which it was launched were false.

How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.

Injustice in the end produces independence.

No one tells me what to do with my music. Real. My mom doesn’t tell what to say, how is someone else going to?

I believe that we should own the fruits of our labor and the assets of our creations.

Mr. Morgan buys his partners; I grow my own.

A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.

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

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who’ll decide where to go.

I am not bound to please thee with my answer.

If there is only one thing in my life that I am proud of, it’s that I’ve never been a kept woman.

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.

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

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.

The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members.

I always like to take my time and examine the two candidates, see not only the two candidates but the policies they will bring in, the people they will bring in, who they might appoint to the Supreme Court, and look at the whole range of issues before making a decision.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

If you would have a faithful servant, and one that you like, serve yourself.

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through Nature up to Nature’s God.

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

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

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 man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.

Now I do whatever I want.

For most of my life I let women do the driving and was happy to let them.

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

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.

My mother told me to be a lady. And for her, that meant be your own person, be independent.

In 1979, Iranians carried out an illegitimate act: They overthrew a tyrant that the United States had imposed and supported, and moved on an independent path, not following U.S. orders.

The term ‚the American Left‘ is as near to being meaningless or nonsensical as any term could really be in politics. It isn’t really a force in politics anymore. And it would do well to ask itself why that is.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace.

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

I have always liked running, so it wasn’t particularly difficult to make it a habit. All you need is a pair of running shoes and you can do it anywhere. It does not require anybody to do it with, and so I found the sport perfectly fits me as a person who tends to be independent and individualistic.

Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don’t attack each other. Free nations don’t develop weapons of mass destruction.

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.

Maybe ‚loner‘ is too strong a word, but I’ve always enjoyed being on my own.

No, we don’t own our children. Our parental privilege is to love them, to lead them, and to let them go.

What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing.

I’m not looking for sympathy at all.

India should walk on her own shadow – we must have our own development model.

Here was buried Thomas Jefferson Author of the Declaration of American Independence Of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom & Father of the University of Virginia.

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.

The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.

Nobody’s ever said that pins are a tool of diplomacy.

Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.