International Relations Quotes

The history and our experience shows that Democrats and Republicans think the same way in some cases, and their ideas aren't very different when it comes to international relations.

It is not God but the Devil who is in charge of the international situation and those who are working for God in it are poor servants if all they do is worship God and neglect their duty to cincumvent the Devil.

I studied political science and international relations, so I never considered myself an artist.

What might save us, me and you, is if the Russians love their children too.

I had two different degrees: One in International Relations/Political Science and another degree in Radio and Television Production.

I never planned on being an actress, just as I never planned on being a model. I went to law and international-relations school. It wasn't my direction. It kind of happened to me. And because it wasn't my dream when I started, I wasn't starstruck.

Nations are always making mistakes because they do not understand each other's psychology.

International relations bears more than a slight resemblance to the mafia.

Whoever has an army has power and that war decides everything.

We hear war called murder. It is not; it is suicide.

If it's wrong when they do it, it's wrong when we do it.

Our modern wars make many unhappy while they last and none happy when they are over.

Countries do not assume burdens because it is fair, only because it is necessary.

Above all, it behooves us to repress, and if possible to extinguish once and for all, our inveterate tendency to judge others by the extent to which they contrive to be like ourselves.

Trade is the natural enemy of all violent passions. Trade loves moderation, delights in compromise, and is most careful to avoid anger. It is patient, supple, and insinuating, only resorting to extreme measures in cases of absolute necessity.

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.

You [young people] all are just much more internationally-minded and traveled and knowledgeable in languages than any other previous generation. So many of you are already doing a lot of international relations, I think. I so believe in student networks, and people that either study abroad or come to the United States to study, and the relationships that you all develop. You learn a lot from each other, but you all will see each other again in jobs along the way. And I think that makes a big difference. I so believe in what students can do.

He who wishes to serve his country must have not only the power to think, but the will to act

There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.

Fifty-seven countries in the world, a third of the United Nations, do not recognize Israel. In a way, I think North Korea has better international relations than Israel.

Law is the essential foundation of stability and order both within societies and in international relations.

I encounter one example after another of how relative truth is.

It would appear that, on the level of individual nations and of international relations, the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs.

History is filled with tragic examples of wars that result from diplomatic impasse. Whether in our local communities or in international relations, the skillful use of our communicative capacities to negotiate and resolve differences is the first evidence of human wisdom.

I think it is a very natural tendency for the nations to increase their influence in the international space, as they pursue their international relations with different countries.

Government planning not only fails; it tends to produce outcomes that are the opposite of what its proponents say that they favor. The only stable and productive social system is one that embraces human liberty in its totality, and defends the market economy, private property, sound money, and peaceful international relations, while opposing government intervention as economically and socially destructive.

Universality of the UN is a worthwhile thing in its own self because it means that every country belongs, feels it has a stake, and participates, rather than going away and finding other methods of conducting international relations.

Because of new technologies, new wealth, new conditions of domestic life and of international relations, unprecedented criteria and issues are coming up for national decision.

We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today's complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not.

I spent the first years working in Jordan trying to learn as much as I could about what was taking place in the country, about where there were gaps in the development process that needed attention. Inevitably, there were certain common denominators which are fairly common to all developing societies, perhaps to all societies: that quality education be accessible to everyone, not just a limited elite few; the sustainable conservation of natural resources; the full engagement of women in national development; and the value of cross-cultural exchange and understanding to international relations.

We want harmonious development, ... We should work together for more democratic and law-based international relations, and a harmonious environment in which countries respect one another, treat one another as equals, and different cultures can emulate and interchange with each other.

The grim fact is that we prepare for war like precocious giants, and for peace like retarded pygmies.

Military intervention to maintain the global status quo will become a constant feature of international relations, whether this is justified in terms of fighting drugs, fighting terrorism, containing 'rogue states', opposing 'Islamic fundamentalism', or containing China.

The world is now too small for anything but brotherhood.

John Marks Templeton has achieved exemplary success in both business and philanthropy. For Looking Forward he has assembled a diverse and remarkable group of experts in their fields-including the environment, medicine, the physical sciences, religion, the family, and international relations-and contributed two stellar pieces as well. Together these essays dispel fashionable pessimism and show how the world can progress-and is progressing-toward a better future.

He who does not attempt to make peace / When small discords arise, / Is like the bee's hive which leaks drops of honey / Soon, the whole hive collapses.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

The more dubious and uncertain an instrument violence has become in international relations, the more it has gained in reputation and appeal in domestic affairs, specifically in the matter of revolution.

Today the real test of power is not capacity to make war but capacity to prevent it.

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.

Hatred is a feeling which leads to the extinction of values.

The peace conference must not adjourn without the establishment of some ordered system of international government, backed by power enough to give authority to its decrees.Unless a league something like this results at our peace conference, we shall merely drop back into armed hostility and international anarchy. The war will have been fought in vain.

A war not only arises, but derives its nature , from the political ideas, the moral sentiments, and the international relations obtaining at the moment when it breaks out. This amounts to saying:;: try and know why and with the help of what you are going to act; then you will find out how to act.

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.

The agony of international relations is the need to try to practice politics without the basic conditions for political order.

According to the first image of international relations, the locus of the important causes of war is found in the nature and behavior of man. Wars result from selfishness, from misdirected aggressive impulses, from stupidity.

We always have hoped that American diplomacy deploys itself in dialogue and persuasion rather than by ultimatums. That is the path we want in international relations.

New Zealand’s nuclear free movement is a broad-based and popular movement. Our nuclear free status is a challenge to much that is accepted as orthodox in international relations. It was formally adopted in the cold war era as a form of resistance to the dismal doctrines of nuclear deterrence. It is still a rebuke to the unprincipled exercise of economic power and military might.

Educational exchange can turn nations into people, contributing as no other form of communication can to the humanizing of international relations. Man's capacity for decent behavior seems to vary directly with his perception of others as individual humans with human motives and feelings, whereas his capacity for barbarism seems related to his perception of an adversary in abstract terms, as the embodiment, that is, of some evil design or ideology.

In no other field has the world yet paid so dearly for the abandonment of nineteenth-century liberalism as in the field where the retreat began: in international relations. Yet only a small part of the lesson which experience ought to have taught us has been learned.