Statesmanship

"When statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties … they lead their country by a short route to chaos."

"Statesmanship […] must consider first the fortunes of the common people. No statesman has a right to risk these fortunes unless he be reasonably assured of success."

"It is strange so great a statesman should Be so sublime a poet."

"But a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition, to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution."

"Learn to think imperially."

"La cordiale entente qui existe entre le gouvernement français et celui de la Grande-Bretagne."

"Si l'on n'a pas de meilleurs moyen de sèduction a lui offrir, l'entente cordiale nous paraît fort compromise."

"No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains To tax our labours and excise our brains."

"The people of the two nations [French and English] must be brought into mutual dependence by the supply of each other's wants. There is no other way of counteracting the antagonism of language and race. It is God's own method of producing an entente cordiale, and no other plan is worth a farthing."

"The truth is, gentlemen, a statesman is the creature of his age, the child of circumstances, the creation of his times. A statesman is essentially a practical character ; and when he is called upon to take office, he is not to inquire what his opinions might or might not have been upon this or that subject he is only to ascertain the needful, and the beneficial, and the most feasible manner in which affairs are to be carried on. I laugh, therefore, at the objections against a man, that, at a former period of his career, he advocated a policy different to his present one."

"I have the courage of my opinions, but I have not the temerity to give a political blank cheque to Lord Salisbury."

"Gli ambasciadori sono l'occhio e l'orecchio degli stati."

"D'ye think that statesmen's kindnesses proceed From any principles but their own need."

"Winston Churchill famously claimed that of all human qualities, courage was the most esteemed, because it guaranteed all others. He was right. Courage—moral courage—is the companion of great leadership. No politician could ever be viewed as exceptional unless he or she had it in spades. And historically there would have been no social progress if not for the presence of specific humans dissenting and breaking from herd-inspired suspicion and fear... At best, courage is self-sacrificing, non-violent, modest and based on universal principles — and immensely powerful.... Look at today’s politicians... keen to be viewed as the virile leaders of their respective countries; eager to inflate their image by harming migrants and refugees, the most vulnerable in society. If there is courage in that, I fail to see it. Authoritarian leaders, or elected leaders inclined toward it, are bullies, deceivers, selfish cowards. If they are growing in number it is because (with exceptions) many other politicians are mediocre... focused on their own image... too afraid to stand up... What if 100m or more people marched around the world in protest at what it is we now see: the ineptitude, selfishness, the cruelties and the threats to our collective well-being? ...it might just deliver a sort of shock therapy to those dangerous or useless politicians who now threaten humanity."

"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none."

"The first among the sciences is that of statesmanship. That cannot be learnt in academies. No great minister, from Suger to Richelieu, ever occupied himself with physics or mathematics. The genius of the natural sciences makes impossible that other kind of genius, which is a talent unto itself."

"A great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them."

"Who would not praise Patricio's high desert, His hand unstain'd, his uncorrupted heart, His comprehensive head? all interests weigh'd, All Europe sav'd, yet Britain not betray'd."

"If you wish to preserve your secret wrap it up in frankness."

"And lives to clutch the golden keys, To mould a mighty state's decrees, And shape the whisper of the throne."

"There is a remedy against the domination imposed, not by generals, statesmen, and men of action, whose power dissolves when they retire, but by the great sort-crossers, whose power increases when they die- the remedy of becoming aware of metaphor..."

"Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation?—Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?—Why by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humour or caprice?"

"'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world—so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it."

"Statesmen have to bend to the collective will of their peoples or be broken."

"Legatus est vir bonus peregre missus ad mentiendem rei publicæ causæ."

"Spheres of influence."

"Learn to think continentally."

"Nursed by stern men with empires in their brains."

"Statesman, yet friend to truth; of soul sincere, In action faithful, and in honour clear; Who broke no promise, serv'd no private end, Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend; Ennobled by himself, by all approv'd, And prais'd, unenvy'd, by the Muse he lov'd."

"It is well indeed for our land that we of this generation have learned to think nationally."

"And statesmen at her council met Who knew the seasons when to take Occasion by the hand, and make The bounds of freedom wider yet."

"Why don't you show us a statesman who can rise up to the emergency, and cave in the emergency's head."

"Tell the truth, and so puzzle and confound your adversaries."