Quotes & Sayings About Statesmanship

He had been around politicians for a long time, and he was prepared for some outburst. — Stephen L. Carter

The kind of president we need has little to do with ideology and more to do with a willingness to wield power to moral ends. — George Friedman

An anti-politician is hardly an anti-politician once he starts winning and works to close the deal by working to sew up the Establishment. — Rick Perlstein

It is within your power at this very moment not only to consumate an act of enlightened statesmanship, but, as the instrument of the Almighty, to restore to freedom a race of men. — Robert Dale Owen

Side by side with the limitless possibilities opened up by the new technologies, reflection about international order must include the internal dangers of societies driven by mass consensus, deprived of the context and foresight needed on terms compatible with their historical character. In every other era, this has been considered the essence of leadership; in our own, it risks being reduced to a series of slogans designed to capture immediate short-term approbation. Foreign policy is in danger of turning into a subdivision of domestic politics instead of an exercise in shaping the future. If the major countries conduct their policies in this manner internally, their relations on the international stage will suffer concomitant distortions. The search for perspective may well be replaced by a hardening of differences, statesmanship by posturing. As diplomacy is transformed into gestures geared toward passions, the search for equilibrium risks giving way to a testing of limits. — Henry Kissinger

The President is also captured in a well-worn TV news clip, making a boilerplate response to a question on terrorism and then asking the reporters to watch his drive. Well, that's what you get if you catch the President on a golf course. If Eisenhower had done this, as he often did, it would have been presented as calm statesmanship. If Clinton had done it, as he often did, it would have shown his charm. — Christopher Hitchens

It is seldom that statesmen have the option of choosing between a good and an evil. — Charles Caleb Colton

Today is the day for the complaining to end and for statesmanship to begin. Today I am taking action to cut state spending and balance the budget this year. — Chris Christie

The art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence. — Charles Maurice De Talleyrand

Once the revolution of exploitation is under way, statesmanship and craftsmanship are gradually replaced by salesmanship. — Wendell Berry

It is sound statesmanship to add two battleships every time our neighbour adds one and two stories to our skyscrapers every time he piles a new one on top of his to threaten our light. There is no limit to this soundness but the sky. — Mark Twain

This sutura gives example about the purpose of relationship. A son of enemy who wants to uproot his own father, should be treated as friend and shold be protected. This may be called opportunism but is and should be necessary part of polity and statesmanship. Moreover, if a father is not aan upright man to have friendship with his sone can be a meritorious peson. So it is better to protecdt him. — Chanakya

If, in 2008, I could have not been in equities, I wouldn't have been in equities. If I could have not bet on the Seahawks in the Super Bowl, I wouldn't have bet on the Seahawks. Life and statesmanship are not lived with the benefit of hindsight. — Bret Stephens

He was the most persuasive speaker, less for his words than character behind them. He made every listener feel he had done his best to master every aspect of this question, who has been driven by logic to arrive at certain conclusions, and who is disguising from us no argument on either side. — Barbara W. Tuchman

I would like to thank President Goodluck Jonathan for his display of statesmanship in setting a precedent for us that has now made our people proud to be Nigerians wherever they are. — Muhammadu Buhari

For statesmanship is a science and an art; one must have lived for it and been long prepared. Only a philosopher-king is fit to guide a nation. "Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and wisdom and political leadership meet in the same man, ... cities will never cease from ill, nor the human race" (473). This is the key-stone of the arch of Plato's thought. — Will Durant

He had become, through a combination of heritage and character, a keeper of the national conscience. — Barbara W. Tuchman

presidents, when not outright telling lies, feel obliged to shade the truth most of the time. This is called politics; when a president lies successfully, he is called a statesman. — Gore Vidal

History is the school of statesmanship. — John Robert Seeley

The great task of statesmanship is to apply past lessons to new situations, to draw correct analogies to understand and act upon present forces, to recognise the need for change ... — Malcolm Fraser

The principles and policy of these Presidents were marked by the most enlarged and comprehensive statesmanship, promoting the highest interests of the Republic. — Robert Toombs

To craftsmanship we shall add statesmanship in the capitol of peace. — Warren R. Austin

The author defines professionalism as exemplified by his subjects in their mutual unwillingness to take expected opposition personally. They would not allow grudges to get in the way of more important business. — Chris Matthews

Idealism is frequently another word for self-righteousness, a disease that can only be corrected by a profound understanding power in its complete sense. — George Friedman

There's a point, you know, where treachery is so complete and unashamed that it becomes statesmanship. — George MacDonald Fraser

It is wise statesmanship which suggests that in time of peace we must prepare for war, and it is no less a wise benevolence that makes preparation in the hour of peace for assuaging the ills that are sure to accompany war. — Clara Barton

In statesmanship there are predicaments from which it is impossible to escape without some wrongdoing. — Napoleon Bonaparte

The facts of nature cannot in the long run be violated. Penetrating and seeping through everything like water, they will undermine any system that fails to take account of them, and sooner or later they will bring about its downfall. But an authority wise enough in its statesmanship to give sufficient free play to nature - of which spirit is a part - need fear no premature decline. — Carl Jung

Aristotle is the last Greek philosopher who faces the world cheerfully; after him, all have, in one form or another, a philosophy of retreat. The world is bad; let us learn to be independent of it. External goods are precarious; they are the gift of fortune, not the reward of our own efforts. Only subjective goods - virtue, or contentment through resignation - are secure, and these alone, therefore, will be valued by the wise man. Diogenes personally was a man full of vigour, but his doctrine, like all those of the Hellenistic age, was one to appeal to weary men, in whom disappointment had destroyed natural zest. And it was certainly not a doctrine calculated to promote art or science or statesmanship, or any useful activity except one of protest against powerful evil. — Anonymous

Nine-nine of every hundred among you probably desire peace, while the balance may hold war a condition to be preferred; but what can be the mental norm of statesmanship where such a minority conquer the peace-lovers? — Eden Phillpotts

True statesmanship is the art of changing a nation from what it is into what it ought to be. — William Rounseville Alger

Party animosity was concealed under a veil of studied courtesy. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Hence a certain tension between religion and society marks the higher stages of every civilization. Religion begins by offering magical aid to harassed and bewildered men; it culminates by giving to a people that unity of morals and belief which seems so favorable to statesmanship and art; it ends by fighting suicidally in the lost cause of the past. — Will Durant

Diplomacy's primary law: LEAVE ROOM FOR NEGOTIATION. — Barbara W. Tuchman

The challenge of statesmanship is to have the vision to dream of a better, safer world and the courage, persistence, and patience to turn that dream into reality. — Ronald Reagan

Seward would inspire a cow with statesmanship if she understood our language. — Henry Adams

The essence of statesmanship is not a rigid adherence to the past, but a prudent and probing concern for the future. — Hubert H. Humphrey

The idea that the object of constitutions is not to confirm the predominance of any interest, but to prevent it; to preserve with equal care the independence of labour and the security of property; to make the rich safe against envy, and the poor against oppression, marks the highest level attained by the statesmanship of Greece. — Lord Acton

Social movements are at once the symptoms and the instruments of progress. Ignore them and statesmanship is irrelevant; fail to use them and it is weak. — Walter Lippmann

He has conferred on the practice of vacillation the aura of statesmanship. — Kenneth Baker

I see good ideas on the Republican side as well as the Democratic side. You have to return civility and statesmanship to governance. If you don't do that, it doesn't matter what portfolio of issue you're pushing, nothing is going to get done. — Richard Carmona

He believed that rank without power was a sham. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Gods be good, why would any man ever want to be king? When everyone was shouting King in the North, King in the North, I told myself ... swore to myself ... that I would be a good king, as honorable as Father, strong, just, loyal to my friends and brave when I faced my enemies ... now I can't even tell one from the other. — George R R Martin

The last degree of honesty has always been, and is still considered incompatible with statesmanship. To hunger and thirst after righteousness has been naturally, as it were, supposed a disqualification for affairs ... — Harriet Martineau

President George Bush had the courage and the vision and we will always be grateful to President George Bush for that tremendous leadership and statesmanship. — Wesley Clark

He protested. "Wealth," he said, "is no sort of power at all unless you make it one. If it is so in your world it is so by inadvertency. Wealth is a State-made thing, a convention, the most artificial of powers. You can, by subtle statesmanship, contrive what it shall buy and what it shall not. In your world it would seem you have made leisure, movement, any sort of freedom, life itself, _purchaseable_. The more fools you! A poor working man with you is a man in discomfort and fear. No wonder your rich have power. — H.G.Wells

Religion begins by offering magical aid to harassed and bewildered men; it culminates by giving to a people that unity of morals and belief which seems so favorable to statesmanship and art; it ends by fighting suicidally in the lost cause of the past. For — Will Durant

I believe that the public temper is such that the voters of the land are prepared to support the party which gives the best promise of administering the government in the honest, simple, and plain manner which is consistent with its character and purposes. They have learned that mystery and concealment in the management of their affairs cover tricks and betrayal. The statesmanship they require consists in honesty and frugality, a prompt response to the needs of the people as they arise, and a vigilant protection of all their varied interests. — Grover Cleveland

You call that statesmanship. I call it an emotional spasm. — Aneurin Bevan

I consider even a victorious war as an evil, from which statesmanship must endeavor to spare nations. — Otto Von Bismarck

By and by when each nation has 20,000 battleships and 5,000,000 soldiers we shall all be safe and the wisdom of statesmanship will stand confirmed. — Mark Twain

Statistical science is indispensable to modern statesmanship. In legislation as in physical science it is beginning to be understood that we can control terrestrial forces only by obeying their laws. The legislator must formulate in his statutes not only the national will, but also those great laws of social life revealed by statistics. — James A. Garfield

In every era, humanity produces demonic individuals and seductive ideas of repression. The task of statesmanship is to prevent their rise to power and sustain an international order capable of deterring them if they do achieve it. — Henry Kissinger

Hitler was such an anomalous character - he was so over-the-top chaotic in his approach to statesmanship, his manner and in the violence which overwhelmed the country initially. I think diplomats around the world ... felt like something like that simply would not be tolerated by the people of Germany. — Erik Larson

The challenge was that it was harder to be subtle than strident. — Nancy Gibbs; Michael Duffy

And, consequently, the art of propaganda or public information becomes one of the most powerful forms of directive statesmanship. — John Grierson

War can be prevented only by broad-minded statesmanship - a statesmanship that understands how to enlist people's interests in a leading cause. — Ellen Key

Men who think in lifetimes are of little use to statesmanship. — H.G.Wells

Who think in lifetimes are of no use to statesmanship. — Louis L'Amour

Piano playing is more difficult than statesmanship. It is harder to awake emotions in ivory keys than it is in human beings. — Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Statesmanship is developed in the hard knocks of general experience, private and public. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

[T]here cannot be a more certain symptom of the approaching ruin of a State than when a firm adherence to party is fixed upon as the only test of merit, and all the qualifications requisite to a right discharge of every employment, are reduced to that single standard. — Edward Wortley Montagu

The chief element in the art of statesmanship under modern conditions is the ability to elucidate the confused and clamorous interests which converge upon the seat of government. It is an ability to penetrate from the na?ve self-interest of each group to its permanent and real interest. Statesmanship consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want. — Walter Lippmann

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today. — Theodore Roosevelt

There is usually a moment in the life of a new president when he begins to see himself not as an aspirant desperate to win but as a statesman above the squalor and sweat of actual vote getting. Rising men do not like to be reminded of the smell of the stables; dignitaries dislike recollections of the dust through which they have come. — Jon Meacham

No man is educated for statesmanship who cannot see his time from the perspective of the past. — Will Durant

When everybody has got money they cut taxes, and when they're broke they raise them. That's statesmanship of the highest order. — Will Rogers

Since the debt limit simply accommodates debt that has already been incurred, raising it should, in theory, be perfunctory. But politicians have found it a useful shibboleth for showing their fealty fiscal discipline, even as they vote to ratify the debts their previous actions have a beginning the country to pay. The symbol of railing against debt has proven politically beneficial, even if not substantively meaningful. — Thomas E. Mann

Almost all empires were created by force, but none can be sustained by it. Universal rule, to last, needs to translate force into obligation. Otherwise, the energies of the rulers will be exhausted in maintaining their dominance at the expense of their ability to shape the future, which is the ultimate task of statesmanship. Empires persist if repression gives way to consensus. So — Henry Kissinger

To befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business & corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day. — Theodore Roosevelt

On Lincoln: A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship. — James Russell Lowell

This isn't about your reputation. Our job right now is to make sure that there to ARE future historians. — Stephen L. Carter

Emotion is always the enemy of wise statesmanship. — Stephen Kinzer

All our efforts to attain immortality-by statesmanship, by conquest, by science or the arts-are equally vain in the long run, because the long run is longer than any of us can imagine. — Sydney J. Harris

Why is it that all men who have become outstanding in philosophy, statesmanship, poetry or the arts are melancholic, — Joshua Wolf Shenk

The essential task of Canadian statesmanship is to discover the terms on which as many as possible of the significant interest groups of our country can be induced to work together in common policy. — Frank Underhill

The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils. — Enoch Powell

Most men appear to think that the art of despotic government is statesmanship, and what men affirm to be unjust and inexpedient in their own case they are not ashamed of practicing towards others; they demand just rule for themselves, but where other men are concerned they care nothing about it. Such behavior is irrational; unless the one party is, and the other is not, born to serve, in which case men have a right to command, not indeed all their fellows, but only those who are intended to be subjects; just as we ought not to hunt mankind, whether for food or sacrifice . — Aristotle.

Because John McCain stood up our country is better off. The respect he is given around the world is not because of a teleprompter speech designed to appeal to American critics abroad, but because of decades of clearly demonstrated character and statesmanship. — Fred Thompson

I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few. — Benjamin Disraeli

Vital art comes always from a cross between art and life: art being of one sex only, and quite sterile by itself. Such a cross is always possible; for though the artist may not have the capacity to bring his art into contact with the higher life of his time; fermenting in its religion, its philosophy, its science, and its statesmanship (perhaps indeed their may not be any statesmanship going), he can at least bring it into contact with the obvious life and common passions of the streets. 362 — George Bernard Shaw

Politics is an art and not a science, and what is required for its mastery is not the rationality of the engineer but the wisdom and the moral strength of the statesman — Hans J. Morgenthau

The reality is that the American people have no desire for an empire. This is not to say that they don't want the benefits, both economic and strategic. It simply means that they don't want to pay the price. Economically, Americans want the growth potential of open markets but not the pains. Politically, they want to have an enormous influence, but not the resentment of the world. Military, they want to be protected from dangers but not to bear the burdens of long-term strategy. — George Friedman

Statesmanship is harder than politics. Politics is the art of getting along with people, whereas statesmanship is the art of getting along with politicians. — Fletcher Knebel

Americans talked about voters the same way Russians talked about Stalin. They had to be obeyed. — Ken Follett

He cultivated ideological fuzziness. — H.W. Brands

In statesmanship get formalities right, never mind about the moralities. — Mark Twain

Under the attempt to perform the impossible there sets in a general disintegration. When legislation fails, those who look upon it as a sovereign remedy simply cry out for more legislation.
A sound and wise statesmanship which recognizes and attempts to abide by its limitations will undoubtedly find itself displaced by that type of public official who promises much, talks much, legislates much, expends much, but accomplishes little.
The deliberate, sound judgement of the country is likely to find it has been superseded by a popular whim. — Calvin Coolidge

One man's opportunism is another man's statesmanship. — Milton Friedman

We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the manner of yielding what is impossible to keep. — Queen Elizabeth II

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship. — James Russell Lowell

The eternal sea of politics is best left to politicians. — Wayne Gerard Trotman

Honest statesmanship is the wise employment of individual meanness for the public good. — Abraham Lincoln

The frenzy of nations is the statesmanship of fate. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton