To stomp about the world ignoring cultural differences is arrogant, to be sure, but perhaps there is another kind of arrogance in the presumption that we may ever really build a faultless bridge from one shore to another, or even know where the mist has ceded to landfall.

A turbulent history has taught Chinese leaders that not every problem has a solution and that too great an emphasis on total mastery over specific events could upset the harmony of the universe.

The bargaining position of the victor always diminishes with time. Whatever is not exacted during the shock of defeat becomes increasingly difficult to attain later.

History is littered with the wars everybody knew could never happen.

But it doesn't take a thousand men to open a door, my lord.It might to keep it open.

I observe and remain silent.

As life in general constituted much pain in the form of struggles against poverty, disease, ignorance, and emotional anguish, what more civilized way for people to alleviate the same than by giving themselves to one another as brothers and sisters in deed as well as in word? A society of people hoping to become politically superior needed first to become spiritually valid.

If you need something from somebody always give that person a way to hand it to you.

History offers examples of winning in diplomacy after losing in war.

Diplomats make it their business to conceal the facts.

A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.

Diplomacy is the art of saying Nice doggie until you can find a rock.

Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way.

I know no diplomacy save that of truth.

Diplomacy has rarely been able to gain at the conference table what cannot be gained or held on the battlefield.

Let every girl, let every woman, let every mother here [in Israel]-and there in my country [Egypt]-know we shall solve all our problems through negotiations around the table rather than starting war.

There are times when even the greatest tactician in diplomatic cunning is outclassed in his own game. It is then that he discovers that all that he thought he had gained is but loss, and that what is left of national honor and dignity is but the shadow of an illustrious past that is gone forever, or of a potentially great future that will never come.