Weakness on both sides is, as we know, the motto of all quarrels.

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.

Luckily for me, people don’t scream at me that much in my everyday life.

Enemies are so stimulating.

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.

I used to get into a lot of fights.

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.

Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.

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.

Most negotiators are trying to get their way.

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.

To compromise simply means that you go a tiny bit below what you know is right.

What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy?

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.

The best way to resolve any problem in the human world is for all sides to sit down and talk.

There are horrible people who, instead of solving a problem, tangle it up and make it harder to solve for anyone who wants to deal with it. Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.

Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.

If you don’t like what someone has to say, argue with them.

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 we want to fight people in the world, we should fight them with pillows – pillows stuffed with food, medicine, music… That would be so much cheaper than bombs.

Notifying the enemy in advance of our withdrawal dates or reassuring the enemy that we will not use certain capabilities like our ground forces should be avoided.

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.

Debates, I hate.

Example is leadership.

Intervention only works when the people concerned seem to be keen for peace.

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.

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.

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

Law is always better than war.

Family quarrels are bitter things. They don’t go according to any rules. They’re not like aches or wounds, they’re more like splits in the skin that won’t heal because there’s not enough material.

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

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.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.

It’s tough to negotiate from a position of weakness.

I do not believe we will have a war with Iran.

I have a scheme for stopping war. It’s this – no nation is allowed to enter a war till they have paid for the last one.

It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.

Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.

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

When you want a thing done, ‚Don’t do it yourself‘ is a good motto for Scoutmasters.

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

In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also.

Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.

Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.

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.

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

If you want peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

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.

The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.

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.

We must, all of us, learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one.

The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.

Don’t create more enemies than you take out by some immoral act.

I want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behaviour to the Palestinians, and I want the people of the U.S. to cease acting as if they don’t understand what is going on.

I don’t feel bitterness, I don’t feel anger towards anybody. Fighting is never emotional to me.

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

My weak spot is laziness. Oh, I have a lot of weak spots: cookies, croissants.