Mitchell Reiss Quotes

Diplomacy is a frequently neglected imperative.

Bipartisanship is like marriage. It takes two to make it work. It only takes one to make it a failure. The President has been playing politics with foreign policy.

Diplomacy and coalition-building are hard work and not easy for any president.

In the '80s, we at least had the idea of diplomacy.

During the past few years I have led a sometimes hard battle for German foreign policy.

Richard Holbrooke is known for many things, but I will remember him as an impressive, sometimes even intimidating diplomat who understood the value of culture in diplomacy.

I loved being Secretary of State, that's probably evident to everyone who watched me.

The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.

Diplomats make it their business to conceal the facts, and politicians violently denounce the politicians of other countries.

And we ought to work our diplomacy first and I think it's a reason it's going to respond increasingly to our diplomacy particularly with the president's direct involvement in the peace process, and I think that's extraordinarily important.

I might be an ambassador.

I shall have to depend upon you for taking care of these matters of foreign affairs, of which I know so little, and with which I reckon you are familiar.

The first thing a diplomat has to do is understand the domestic politics of foreign states.

Politicians make pacts; people make peace.

Personal pique is not a foreign policy.

Drafting a treaty is much like drafting a law, and I doubt if the members of this committee could point to a single law whose text they would all agree is absolutely perfect, totally without a flaw. The successive drafts of a treaty get better and better …. Even the final text that is signed and ratified will have flaws, but it will be accepted if it is seen by a strong consensus as substantially better than no treaty at all.

Let him (the king) also appoint an ambassador who is versed in all sciences, who understands hints, expressions of the face and gestures, who is honest, skilful, and of noble family. Such an ambassador is commended to a king who is loyal, honest, skilful, possessing a good memory, who knows the proper place and time for action, who is handsome, fearless, and eloquent. For the ambassador alone makes kings' allies and separates allies; the ambassador transacts that business by which kings are disunited or not.

The limits of diplomacy must be acknowledged.

Lord Salisbury and myself have brought you back peace – but a peace I hope with honour.

Boundary and peace treaties are not inspired documents.

We have to develop preventive diplomacy.

Negotiations are the most essential tool of statecraft.

Statecraft, as these cases convincingly illustrate, is demanding and often exhausting work. There are risks, and success is not guaranteed. It requires major governmental and political resources and the same kind of hourly, year-round planning and execution as the conduct of a military campaign.

Mr. Roosevelt. You perhaps believe that your intervention can be effective anywhere.

If you have diplomatic relations, maybe you can try to change them from within. If you don’t have diplomatic relations, change can only come from without through confrontation.