Diplomats quotes
66 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
"Even when I was at CIA, I'd go to visit foreign leaders and I'd say, 'You know, I'm not a diplomat. I'm just an old CIA guy'... I said, 'If I wanted to be diplomatic, I'd have been a diplomat.'"
"Diplomacy, of course, is a subtle and nuanced craft, so much so that it's said that when the most wily diplomat of the nineteenth-century passed away, other diplomats asked, on reports of his death, "What do you suppose the old fox meant by that?"
"a diplomat ... is not worthy of the name unless he can say 'no' and make the other person like it - or at least not be offended by it."
"There are three species of creatures who when they seem coming are going, when they seem going they come: diplomats, women, and crabs."
"Once the Xerox copier was invented, diplomacy died."
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside diplomats — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"Timing: The alpha and omega of aerialists, jugglers, actors, diplomats, publicists, generals, prizefighters, revolutionists, financiers, dictators, lovers."
"Fools are in great demand, especially on social occasions. They embarrass everyone but provide material for conversation. In their positive form, they become diplomats."
"An American diplomat is sometimes like a bull who carries his own china shop around with him."
"A Duke couldn't have the arse hanging out of his trousers when meeting foreign diplomats. Actually even plain old Sam Vimes never had the arse hanging out of his trousers, either, but no one would have actually started a war if he had."
"The [Carter] administration doesn't know the difference between a diplomat and a doormat."
"I am a soldier and accustomed to risking my life every day. I am full of the fire of youth; I cannot act with the restraint of an accomplished diplomat."
"I cannot imagine how any diplomat, or any dramatist, could improve on (Ronald Reagan's) words to Mikhail Gorbachev at the Geneva summit: 'Let me tell you why it is we distrust you.' Those words are candid and tough and they cannot have been easy to hear. But they are also a clear invitation to a new beginning and a new relationship that would be rooted in trust."
