Henry L. Stimson Quotes

Technology is like the ante in a poker game. It is the price you pay to play the game. But it doesn't mean you are going to win.

Performances are always more interesting to me when something is at stake.

With negotiations, you never know what's going to happen.

Successful diplomacy is an alignment of objectives and means.

I'm not a betting man.

Diplomacy is more than saying or doing the right things at the right time, it is avoiding saying or doing the wrong things at any time.

The game is a game, and things happen, and you can't always execute your plan as perfectly as you'd like to.

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.

Nothing he [a Foreign Secretary] can say can do very much good, and almost anything he may say may do a great deal of harm. Anything he says that is not obvious is dangerous; whatever is not trite is risky. He is forever poised between the cliche and the indiscretion.

Success in diplomacy is often most advantageous when it is incomplete, an adversary needs an honorable path of retreat if we are to achieve our main policy goals through the reputation of our power rather than through the actual use of force.

Diplomacy, contrary to the current misconception, is not about making nice, exchanging happy talk, and offering concessions. It is the engine that converts raw energy and tangible power into meaningful political results. In other words, diplomacy is all about the intelligent use of power. Diplomacy is not an alternative to coercion and other forms of power; its effectiveness depends on their skillful use.

Diplomacy … means the art of nearly deceiving all your friends, but not quite deceiving all your enemies

You have to negotiate with people who don’t trust you and vica versa. You have to be very careful but you can’t be paralyzed.

War is uncertain, precisely because it is political and human.

Tis easy to see, hard to foresee.

You can never assume that something is going to do well.

It's never a done deal until it's a done deal.

A man sits as many risks as he runs.

You have to make smart decisions, but you never know what will happen in the future.

Always remember, however sure you are that you could easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance.

And a diplomatist is one who lets the other fellow think he's getting his way, while all the time he's having his own. It never does any special harm to let people have their way with their mouths.

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?

Don't count your boobies until they are hatched.

Diplomacy is not merely talking somebody into something; it's talking to somebody from a position of strength. You put your power on the table to open up the conversation; that's diplomacy.

Just remember...you are the one with everything to lose.