Statecraft Quotes & Sayings

We need a dramatically expanded use of statecraft. — Newt Gingrich

The feelings of politicians are rarely transparent. — John Ferling

Deceit is a tool of statecraft," Irulan agreed.
"There are limits to power, as those who put their hopes in a constitution always discover," Paul said. — Frank Herbert

For, although one may be very strong in armed forces, yet in entering a province one has always need of the goodwill of the natives. — Niccolo Machiavelli

That such lowly beginnings would soon become one of the world's strongest dictatorships is beyond fantastic. Lenin was essentially a pamphleteer. In 1918 he was identified as "Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and journalist," and earned more money from publication honoraria (15,000 rubles) than from his salary (10,000 rubles).17 Trotsky was a writer as well, and a grandiloquent orator, but similarly without experience or training in statecraft. Sverdlov was something of an amateur forger, thanks to his father's engraving craft, and a crack political organizer but hardly an experienced policy maker. Stalin was also an organizer, a rabble-rouser, and, briefly, a bandit, but primarily a periodicals editor - commissar of nationalities was effectively his first regular employment since his brief stint as a teenage Tiflis weatherman. Now, — Stephen Kotkin

Statecraft and kingship were not for the faint of heart — Sharon Kay Penman

If you want to understand your government, don't begin by reading the Constitution. (It conveys precious little of the flavor of today's statecraft.) Instead, read selected portions of the Washington telephone directory containing listings for all the organizations with titles beginning with the word National. — George Will

Though the general principles of statecraft have survived the rise and fall of empires, every increase in knowledge has brought about changes in the political, economic, and social structure. — John Boyd Orr

Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft. — Winston S. Churchill

He is able to put aside personal feelings and see the broad strokes. Experience counts in these things. — Geraldine Brooks

If soldiering did not interest him, the soldiers themselves were another matter. He loved to sit with the men and draw out their first-hand stories of past campaigns. — Geraldine Brooks

For all the sublimity of art, physics, music, mathematics, and other manifestations of human genius, everything depends on the mundane, frustrating, often debased vocation known as politics (and its most exacting subspecialty - statecraft). Because if we don't get politics right, everything else risks extinction. — Charles Krauthammer

No less than war or statecraft, the history of Economics has its heroic ages. — Aldous Huxley

A sense of messianic purpose makes the national interest almost indistinguishable from the political interests of the president. — Ron Suskind

Whether you extrapolate from Machiavelli or Castiglione, a kind of unworthy wisdom has stood the test of time in statecraft: you should have principles to make your conduct predictable, but at the same time know that you are limiting your options. It works if you are strong because you can force others to conform; but if you are weak, then having no principles means you have limitless options for action and can adjust through flexibility to acts dictated by others. — Khaled Ahmed

We are too small and our statecraft is too feeble to be seen by a spacecraft between the Earth and the Moon. From this vantage point, our obsession with nationalism is nowhere in evidence. — Carl Sagan

A western audience might not appreciate 'Chanakya's Chant' because of its dependence on history and ancient statecraft. My book is a modern-day thriller that draws on a bedrock of history. My primary object is to entertain, not educate. — Ashwin Sanghi

When learning was monopolized by the monks in the Middle Ages, people specialized only in warfare and statecraft. And even these were not altogether free from the scholastic influence. — Ameen Rihani

Finally, we were notorious enough to give our enemies pause. — Geraldine Brooks

Persuasion usually came first, but military strength was always the indispensable instrument of Byzantine statecraft, without which nothing else could be of much use - certainly not bribes to avert attacks, which would merely whet appetites if proffered in weakness. The upkeep of sufficient military strength was therefore the permanent, many-sided challenge that the Byzantine state had to overcome each and every day, year after year, century after century. Two essential Roman practices that the Byzantines were long able to preserve - as the western empire could not - made this possible, if only by a very small margin at times. — Edward N. Luttwak

He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson in statecraft. — James Russell Lowell

A great state is a well-blended mash of something of all the people and all of none of the people. The liquor of statecraft is distilled from the mash you got. — Zora Neale Hurston

He was aware now of many things - of statecraft and profound consequences in the smallest decisions. Yet he felt this knowledge and subtlety as a thin veneer covering an iron core of simpler, more deterministic awareness. And that older core called out to him, pleaded with him for a return to cleaner values. — Frank Herbert

They believed us and perished for it. Our statecraft, our learning
Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burning
Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour -
Not since her birth has our Earth seen such worth loosed upon her.
Nor was their agony brief, or once only imposed on them.
The wounded, the war-spent, the sick received no exemption:
Being cured they returned and endured and achieved our redemption,
Hopeless themselves of relief, till Death, marvelling, closed on them.
That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was given
To corruption unveiled and assailed by the malice of Heaven -
By the heart-shaking jests of Decay where it lolled on the wires -
To be blanched or gay-painted by fumes - to be cindered by fires -
To be senselessly tossed and retossed in stale mutilation
From crater to crater. For this we shall take expiation.
But who shall return us the children? — Rudyard Kipling

There is a schizophrenic nature in modern politics. A leader is expected to have a religious faith but he is not supposed to let it influence him in his duties. Somehow, the truths that determine everything else about his existence are not allowed to influence how he conducts himself in public life. Not only that, his principles are usually considered so personal that the public is not even allowed to know for certain what they are. This passes for noble statecraft in our time. It was once thought cowardice. — Stephen Mansfield

He was always acting, always enveloping himself in artificiality, perhaps to conceal the volcano within. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Power and fear," he said. "The tools of statecraft. — Frank Herbert

No one sits, as you do, so close to a king, who does not begin to grasp how the levers of power work, and the cost of the oil that must grease them. — Geraldine Brooks

Under (Lyndon) Johnson, the Senate functions like a Greek tragedy. All the action takes place offstage, before the play begins. Nothing is left for the participants but the enactment of their prescribed roles. — Bobby Baker

I say statecraft is soulcraft. Just as all education is moral education because learning conditions conduct, most legislation is moral legislations because it conditions the action and the thought of the nation in broad and important spheres in life. — George Will

If men understood domestic economy half as well as women do, then their political economy and their entire consequent statecraft would not be the futil muddle which it is. — James Stephens

In statecraft, as in medicine, words are sometimes the most powerful drugs we can use. The power of propaganda should never be discounted, — Ashwin Sanghi

The aspiration to such uniformity and order alerts us to the fact that modern statecraft is largely a project of internal colonization, often glossed, as it is in its imperial rhetoric, as a 'civilizing mission'. — James C. Scott

The American president had allowed the old order to topple without a viable alternative in place, a reckless act with no precedent in modern statecraft. And for some reason he had chosen this moment in time to throw Israel to the wolves. — Daniel Silva

Confronted by menace or what is perceived as menace, governments will usually attempt to smash it, rarely to examine it, understand it, and drefine it. — Barbara W. Tuchman

The triviality of the current scene usually put her off, but now she supposed that the politics of the moment always looked petty and stupid; only later did it take on the look of respectable statecraft, of immutable History. — Kim Stanley Robinson

[May] this civic and social landmark [the Washington, D.C., Jewish Community Center] ... be a constant reminder of the inspiring service that has been rendered to civilization by men and women of the Jewish faith. May [visitors] recall the long array of those who have been eminent in statecraft, in science, in literature, in art, in the professions, in business, in finance, in philanthropy and in the spiritual life of the world. — Calvin Coolidge

From visible habits we make inferences as to the invisible attributes of the soul. Therefore, statecraft is soulcraft. — George F. Will

Pointing out the possible, and expensive, entanglements that could come with widespread commercial enterprise, the author calculates the Great Britain was at war half the time between 1689 and 1783. — John Ferling

For leaders, wars are filled with guesses. — John Ferling

And as to this little thing [his book], when it has been read it will be seen that during the fifteen years I have given to the study of statecraft I have neither slept nor idled; and men ought ever to desire to be served by one who has reaped experience at the expense of others. And of my loyalty none could doubt, because having always kept faith I could not now learn how to break it; for he who has been faithful and honest, as I have, cannot change his nature; and my poverty is a witness to my honesty. — Niccolo Machiavelli

The designs of the paper euros, introduced in 2002, proclaim a utopian aspiration. Gone are the colorful bills of particular nations, featuring pictures of national heroes of statecraft, culture and the arts, pictures celebrating unique national narratives. With the euro, 16 nations have said goodbye to all that. — George Will

That is what I hate about ruling and royalty, Simon. It is living, breathing people with whom a prince plays the games of statecraft. — Tad Williams

In government, our chief executives have been lawyers. The great majority of our cabinets and congresses are and have been men trained in the law. They have provided the leadership and the statecraft and the store of strength when it was needed. — Robert Kennedy

Initial uniformity can be deceiving, warns the author, because parties arrive at that state from so many different motives which will be exposed over time. — Donald R. Hickey

Princes give rewards with their own hands,
But death or punishment by the hands of other. — John Webster

Zealous statesmen perhaps did more mischief than anything in the Galaxy--with the possible exception of procrastinating soldiers. That could indicate the fundamental difference between statecraft and war. — H. Beam Piper