“Well, the thing that I learned as a diplomat is that human relations ultimately make a huge difference.”

The complexity of immigration as an issue begins with a basic human trait: we are reluctant to share.

Painful the grounds for resentment, the easier it is for a Fascist leader to gain followers by dangling the prospect of renewal or by vowing to take back what has been stolen.

For the DPRK and its military, the ouster of Saddam Hussein conveyed a powerful message: it’s not enough to pretend to have weapons of mass destruction. To be secure, a nation must build them, own them, and hide them.

Among those welcoming Fascism and shouting Viva Mussolini that day were two hundred Jews.

There are a lot of similar aspects in all the religions. The question is which side of it you hold up.

To put it mildly, the world is a mess.

I have said this many times, that there seems to be enough room in the world for mediocre men, but not for mediocre women, and we really have to work very, very hard.

I am not a fatalist. I have just been reading War and Peace and Tolstoy is such a fatalist. I think people can make a difference, I am an optimist who worries a lot.

The voice and force of the United States may count for nothing if they are withheld too long.

Whatever the job you are asked to do at whatever level, do a good job because your reputation is your resume.

Wilson’s doctrine of self-determination gave a boost to the idea that wherever there dwelled a people, there should be a state.

I think that a president needs to have a variety of views presented. But also, there has to be a team effort, because otherwise, I think it creates a dissonance and difficulty.

While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run, it is among the most fragile.

I do not believe that things happen accidentally; I believe you earn them.

To reduce the sum of our existence to a competitive struggle for advantage among more than two hundred nations is not clear-eyed but myopic. People and nations compete, but that is not all that they do.

Good guys don’t always win, especially when they are divided and less determined than their adversaries.