Statesmanship Quotes

“I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.”
― Benjamin Disraeli

“Diplomacy's primary law: LEAVE ROOM FOR NEGOTIATION.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914

“Political parties are on the hunt to search and destroy each other, as though we were involved in some kind of enemy combat, rather than the work of statesmanship.”
― John Lewis, Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America

“The President is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that's what you get if you catch the President on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. If Clinton had done it, as he often did, it would have shown his charm.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left

“The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils.”
― Enoch Powell, Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" Speech 1968

“Party animosity was concealed under a veil of studied courtesy.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914

“presidents, when not outright telling lies, feel obliged to shade the truth most of the time. This is called politics; when a president lies successfully, he is called a statesman.”
― Gore Vidal

“He was the most persuasive speaker, less for his words than character behind them. He made every listener feel he had done his best to master every aspect of this question, who has been driven by logic to arrive at certain conclusions, and who is disguising from us no argument on either side.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914

“Help yourself with the state! It's on democracy!”
― Ljupka Cvetanova, The New Land

“The difference between a Statesman and a Politician is that a Statesman is versed in the history behind the policies, thus rooted deep into bedrock beliefs that are not easily swayed by party politics or financial gain.”
― A.E. Samaan

“Statesmen should remember that they have been elected to persuade and to lead, and not just to accept as fixed the momentary moods and pernicious prejudices of the public.”
― Stanley Hoffmann, World Disorders: Troubled Peace in the Post-Cold War Era

“Politics look very simple to the outsider whether he is a businessman or a soldier – it is only when you get into it that all the angles and hard work become apparent. James Forrestal”
― David Pietrusza, 1948: Harry Truman's Improbable Victory and the Year that Transformed America

“In a democracy government is the God.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“State first, subject second, statesman last.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“Nine-nine of every hundred among you probably desire peace, while the balance may hold war a condition to be preferred; but what can be the mental norm of statesmanship where such a minority conquer the peace-lovers?”
― Eden Phillpotts, Saurus

“If you look at it closely, every individual is a separate entity, state and culture. The macro state is a federation of citizens who accept to live under the same law.”
― Bangambiki Habyarimana, Book of Wisdom

“In real life, the political and strategic games used by politicians and statesmen are in fact social games - requiring social intelligence as well as technical mastery of information. The skills of the orator, cultivated by ancient statesmen like Cicero and Demosthenes, or by modern statesmen like Benjamin Disraeli and Abraham Lincoln, require emotional maturity and the talent of seeing events through the eyes of others. A great statesman sets aside his own egoism. He takes a more objective view. In this way, he avoids the errors that attend a purely egoistic standpoint. The explanation which Kierkegaard offered, which is none too flattering, is that people no longer desire a great king, a heroic liberator or an authoritative religion. They don’t want strict rules or high standards. That is because they want an easy time of it. They want a soft existence which can only be guaranteed by eschewing the great and heroic, the true and the noble. This is the moral perspective of high politics and of true statesmanship. Only those who reach this fifth stage can transform world calamity into world regeneration.”
― J.R.Nyquist

“He had been around politicians for a long time, and he was prepared for some outburst.”
― Stephen L. Carter, Back Channel

“This isn't about your reputation. Our job right now is to make sure that there to ARE future historians.”
― Stephen L. Carter, Back Channel

“The author defines professionalism as exemplified by his subjects in their mutual unwillingness to take expected opposition personally. They would not allow grudges to get in the way of more important business.”
― Chris Matthews, Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked

“He cultivated ideological fuzziness.”
― H.W. Brands

“An anti-politician is hardly an anti-politician once he starts winning and works to close the deal by working to sew up the Establishment.”
― Rick Perlstein, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan

“He believed that rank without power was a sham.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914

“He had become, through a combination of heritage and character, a keeper of the national conscience.”
― Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914

“I would rather contend with an honest asshole than a duplicitous diplomat.”
― A.E. Samaan

“… the South is the land of Washington, who made our Nation – of Jefferson, who shaped its direction – and of Robert E. Lee who, after gallant failure, urged those who had followed him in bravery to reunite America in purpose and courage.” --President John F. Kennedy”
― President John F. Kennedy

“Furthermore, a serious distortion of statesmanship occurs. Year by year, the statesman's time is increasingly devoted to an growing subset of misfits and neurotics, supposedly "oppressed" by an unfair social system which must be rectified. Little by little, the "oppressed" become the state's chief preoccupation, eclipsing the traditional tasks of statesmanship. The system no longer justifies itself in religious or historical terms, but on egalitarian grounds, in terms of "fairness" or "social justice." What actually happens, overall, is that greater and greater demands are placed upon the productive citizen to provide for the unproductive.”
― J.R.Nyquist

“To establish Peace, you need order, and to maintain order, you need Authority. Thus, if Authority doesn't lie with self-righteous men in a society, Peace cannot prevail.”
― Shaikh Mahmud bin Ilyas

“Sama meant conciliation or alliances; Dana was giving gifts or compensation; Bheda was to reason with logic, and Danda meant physical altercation or war.”
― Afp Kozhipatt, British Raj Thillana: The Finale

“The difference between the statesman and the politician, after all, is largely the difference between the man who goes to the pub and sees a lot of his fellow national intelligences and the man who does the same thing and sees a lot of common persons easily to be converted into a crowd. Britain has had a vast experience of the two in her time and has learnt to recognise the great by their ability to assess their superiority over the rest of us accurately and not to get some fantastic idea that they are a different species altogether. A giant is only half as tall again as his fellow men, past that he becomes a monster.”
― Margery Allingham