Statesmanship Quotes
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.
I consider even a victorious war as an evil, from which statesmanship must endeavor to spare nations.
The essence of statesmanship is not a rigid adherence to the past, but a prudent and probing concern for the future.
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.
Statesmanship is developed in the hard knocks of general experience, private and public.
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.
Piano playing is more difficult than statesmanship. It is harder to awake emotions in ivory keys than it is in human beings.
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.
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.
When everybody has got money they cut taxes, and when they're broke they raise them. That's statesmanship of the highest order.
Statesmanship is harder than politics. Politics is the art of getting along with people, whereas statesmanship is the art of getting along with politicians.
And, consequently, the art of propaganda or public information becomes one of the most powerful forms of directive statesmanship.
It is seldom that statesmen have the option of choosing between a good and an evil.
Honest statesmanship is the wise employment of individual meanness for the public good.
...to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
In statesmanship there are predicaments from which it is impossible to escape without some wrongdoing.
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.
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.
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.
There's a point, you know, where treachery is so complete and unashamed that it becomes statesmanship.
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.
The eternal sea of politics is best left to politicians.
True statesmanship is the art of changing a nation from what it is into what it ought to be.
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.
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.
'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world - as far I mean as we are now at liberty to do it.
Peace commerce and honest friendship with all nations - entangling alliances with none.
Statesmen should remember that they have been elected to persuade and to lead, and not just to accept as fixed the momentary moods and pernicious prejudices of the public.
Diplomacy's primary law: LEAVE ROOM FOR NEGOTIATION.
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.
Politics look very simple to the outsider whether he is a businessman or a soldier – it is only when you get into it that all the angles and hard work become apparent. James Forrestal
He had been around politicians for a long time, and he was prepared for some outburst.
In this slipshod age, we need object lessons in language and thought. – Edith Wharton on an address by John Hay
Americans talked about voters the same way Russians talked about Stalin. They had to be obeyed.
He believed that rank without power was a sham.
He had become, through a combination of heritage and character, a keeper of the national conscience.