Diplomacy: The art of saying “nice doggie” until you can find a rock. – Wynn Catlin
Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way. – Daniele Vare
Diplomat: A person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip. – Caskie Stinett, Out of the Red, 1960
Diplomats are useful only in fair weather. As soon as it rains they drown in every drop. – Charles de Gaulle
When a diplomat says yes he means perhaps; when he says perhaps he means no; when he says no he is no diplomat. – Author Unknown
An ambassador is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the commonwealth. – Henry Wotton, Reliquiæ Wottonianæ
In archaeology you uncover the unknown. In diplomacy you cover the known. – Thomas Pickering
Diplomacy: The business of handling a porcupine without disturbing the quills. – Author Unknown
I must acknowledge, once and for all, that the purpose of diplomacy is to prolong a crisis. – Star Trek, Mr. Spock
Negotiation in the classic diplomatic sense assumes parties more anxious to agree than to disagree. – Dean Acheson
An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle. – Walter Bagehot
Foreign diplomats in Rome disconsolately say, Italy is the opposite of Russia. In Moscow nothing is known, yet everything is clear. In Rome everything is public, there are no secrets, everybody talks, things are at times flamboyantly enacted, yet one understands nothing. – Luigi Barzini
If you are to stand up for your Government you must be able to stand up to your Government. – Lord Harold Caccia
Diplomacy is the art of saying Nice doggie! till you can find a rock. – Wynn Catlin
I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I speak the truth, and they never believe me. – Di Cavour
There is, in world affairs, a steady course to be followed between an assertion of strength that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly. – Dwight D Eisenhower
To act with doubleness towards a man whose own conduct was double, was so near an approach to virtue that it deserved to be called by no meaner name than diplomacy. – George Eliot
There are a few ironclad rules of diplomancy but to one there is no exception. When an official reports that talks were useful, it can safely be concluded that nothing was accomplished. – John Kenneth Galbraith
Diplomats were invented simply to waste time. – David Lloyd George
Diplomacy is to do and say the nastiest things in the nicest way. – Isaac Goldberg
