International Relations Quotes

One of the main purposes of university education is to escape from the Zeitgeist, from the mean, narrow, provincial spirit which is constantly assuring us that we are at the peak of human achievement, that we stand on the edge of unprecedented prosperity or an unparalleled catastrophe; that the next summit conference is going to be the most fateful in history or that the leader of the day is either the greatest, or the most disastrous, of all time. It is a liberation of the spirit to acquire perspective, to recognize that every generation is confronted by problems of the utmost subjective urgency, but that an objective grading is probably impossible; to learn that the same moral predicaments and the same ideas have been explored before. One need read very little in political theory to become aware of recurrences and repetitions.

~ Martin Wight

In a rich moonlit garden, flowers open beneath the eyes of entire nations terrified to acknowledge the simplicity of the beauty of peace.

~ Aberjhani

War made the state, and the state made war

~ Charles Tilly

But we are only termites on a planet and maybe when we bore too deeply into the planet there'll be a reckoning. Who knows?

~ Harry S. Truman

A single strand appeared to unite these conflicts, and that was the advancement of a small coterie's concept of American interests in the guise of the fight against terrorism... I recognized that if this was to be the single most important priority of our species, then the lives of those of us who lived in lands in which such killers also lived had no meaning except as collateral damage.

~ Mohsin Hamid

Palestinian and Israeli leaders finally recover the Road Map to Peace, only to discover that, while they were looking for it, the Lug Nuts of Mutual Interest came off the Front Left Wheel of Accommodation, causing the Sport Utility Vehicle of Progress to crash into the Ditch of Despair.

~ Dave Barry

The possibility of somebody emerging as a nuclear power or events happening that surprise us on the nuclear age is still a possibility. It always will be because there's an awful lot going on behind the scenes. Our intelligence just has to get better on that score. Peter Goss

~ Joel C. Rosenberg

The Possibility of somebody emerging as a nuclear power or events happening that surprise us on the nuclear stage is still a possibility. It always will be because there's an awful lot going behind the scenes. Our intelligence just has to get better on the score. -Peter Goss.

~ Joel C. Rosenberg

Too often in the post-9/11 world, when the time has come to translate the moral, and essentially progressive, roots of foreign policy idealism into plans for American action, liberals have said, 'Duck.

~ Richard Just

How can you cry for others’ struggles when you are facilitating mayhem in your own land?

~ Nilantha Ilangamuwa

The most fundamental problem is not that we don’t have a system to run but those with knowledge are cynically manipulating the system for petty personal desires.

~ Nilantha Ilangamuwa

Americans may say they love our accents (I have been accused of sounding 'like Princess Di') but the more thoughtful ones resent and rather dislike us as a nation and people, as friends of mine have found out by being on the edge of conversations where Americans assumed no Englishmen were listening.And it is the English, specifically, who are the targets of this. Few Americans have heard of Wales. All of them have heard of Ireland and many of them think they are Irish. Scotland gets a sort of free pass, especially since Braveheart re-established the Scots' anti-English credentials among the ignorant millions who get their history off the TV.

~ Peter Hitchens

History has taught us that the idea of superpower is for a political maniac to design the art of control over other countries.

~ Nilantha Ilangamuwa

A nuclear-weapons-free world is the highest gift of humanity to the next generation.

~ Amit Ray

We have to examine the extent to which we export poverty to other societies. When we decide that we will import products from China that are produced by people earning less than a dollar an hour, and grant their country most-favored-nation status (political contributions notwithstanding), we are deciding to make American workers who must earn the minimum wage compete with them. I am not suggesting that we close the doors to China or to Mexico, but I am suggesting that we look very carefully at the web of international relationships that we are creating. At the very minimum, we should understand that we have two choices in our country: we can raise world living standards by exporting those standards, or we can lower living standards- not only the world’s but also our own- by deciding that it is acceptable for the products of exploited labor to enter this country.

~ Julianne Malveaux

I have a dream to make this world a better place to live for our unborn generations and that dream will come true through silent revolution - the revolution of positive actions and positive vibrations. Be a part of that revolution.

~ Amit Ray

The real challenge of compassion, nonviolence and mindfulness is to love in adverse situation.

~ Amit Ray

I dream, one day the consciousness of the countries will be so high that they will be ashamed to place military on the international borders. All international borders will be place for the tourist, gardeners and cultural celebration.

~ Amit Ray

Line of control should be a garden, a place of art and cultural festival.

~ Amit Ray

Line of control must be renamed as garden of love and the barbed wire fencing should be replaced by the garden of flowers.

~ Amit Ray

Most of the institutions that come in to offer help after disaster don't have the resources to provide concrete help. . . . Donor communities invest billions funding peace talks and disarmament. Then they stop. The most important part of postwar help is missing: providing basic social services to people. Not having those resources might have been a reason men went to war in the first place; they crossed a border and joined an armed group because they didn't have jobs. In Liberia right now, there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed young people, and they're ready-made mercenaries for wars in West Africa. You'd think the international community would be sensible enough to know they should work to change this. But they aren't.

~ Leymah Gbowee

Of course, peace treaties are very attractive to those who sign them. They strengthen one's prestige with the electorate. But the time will come when the names of these public figures will be erased from history. Nobody will remember them any longer. But the Western peoples will have to pay heavily for these overtrusting agreements.

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Bringing countries together above their conflicts require great minds and great hearts.

~ Amit Ray

[In case of zombie uprising] Marxists and Feminists would likely sympathize more with zombies. To Marxists, the undead symbolize the oppressed proletariat. Unless the zombies were all undead white males, feminists would likely welcome the posthuman smashing of existing patriarchal structures.

~ Daniel W. Drezner

They said “globalization”!!; my reply then was and still is that the only way for globalization to cherish and succeed is through a “lifestyle” and not through a “culture” driven societies; and gentlemen, that is not what the world can afford !!

~ Hisham Fawzi

He who wishes to serve his country must have not only the power to think, but the will to act

~ Plato

In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous.

~ Samuel P. Huntington

If it's wrong when they do it, it's wrong when we do it.

~ Noam Chomsky

[Internationa] Aid is just another praetorian business enterprise.

~ Arundhati Roy

The rate spread of EBOLA VIRUS in West Africa, is big tragedy. It is a fatal disease in the history of the world. Intensive education (formal and informal approaches) of the citizens of African can help prevent the spread. International cooperation is urgently needed to combat the EBOLA virus.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

That’s the key to walking through the Wall.... You have to first see it as not being a Wall, even though everyone you know still sees it as a Wall.

~ Kevin J. Shay

We do not have to dig deep into history to understand the reality. The examples of Saddam Hussain, who was executed after a sham trial and the case of Muammar Gaddafi, who killed after surrendering in broad daylight, have given enough factual reality to understand the painful truth.

~ Nilantha Ilangamuwa

We essentially had to build a docking mechanism between the two capsules. We didn't have to share a lot of data, and we did that at the height of the Cold War, which was pretty symbolic. –Bill Gerstenmaier

~ Ron Garan

The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion […] but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.

~ Samuel P. Huntington

How can you measure progress if you don't know what it costs and who has paid for it? How can the market put a price on things - food, clothes, electricity, running water - when it doesn't take into account the REAL cost of production?

~ Arundhati Roy

It is a tragedy, at rate at which EBOLA VIRUS is spreading in West Africa. It is a fatal disease in the history of the world. Intensive education (formal and informal approaches) of the citizens of African can help prevent the spread. International cooperation is urgently needed to combat the EBOLA virus.

~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Ideally, the ISS program will just be one more incremental step on an expanding, incredible journal of exploration and understanding, taking us higher and farther.

~ Ron Garan

Mounting tensions in Eastern Europe send shivers down the spine. Barely a quarter of a century after the end of the Cold War we seem to be sliding inexorably towards another.

~ Alex Morritt

... only a country to which people flock by the thousands from all corners of the world, has the right to advise others how to live. And the country from which so many others break out, across its frontiers, in tanks, or fly away in the homemade balloons or in the latest supersonic fighter, or escape across mine-fields and through machine-gun ambushes, or give the slip to packs of guard-dogs, that country certainly has no right to teach anyone anything - at least not for the time being.First of all, put your own house in order. Try to create there such a society that people will not dig underground passages in order to escape. Only then shall we earn the right to teach others. And not with our tanks, but with good advice and our own personal example. Observe, admire, then go and imitate our example, if it pleases you.

~ Suvorov Viktor

Nation has to be proud of itself to move forward.It should be clear that as long as India does not stand-up, there will be no peace in Asia.

~ Vikram Singh Slathia