Top 33 Statesmen Quotes

Politicians all too often think about the next election. Statesmen think about the next generation.

We were thus led to organize ourselves, as men who had fought the war together, in order to support those statesmen who had truly understood the lessons of that World War, thus attempting to prevent its recurrence.

Conservative statesmen from Alexander Hamilton to Ronald Reagan sometimes supported protectionism, and at other times, they leaned toward lowering barriers. But they always understood that trade policy was merely a tool for building a strong and independent country with a prosperous middle class.

I have always been thankful that so many of our country’s greatest leaders and statesmen were able to be on this earth at the same time and place to draft the Constitution.

One of the things I’ve learned from ‘Borgen’ is that it’s very easy to criticise people; ‘I hate this politician, I hate what they do.’ You are doing this right now with Margaret Thatcher, but sometimes it’s hard to be a politician. I’m not defending Margaret Thatcher, but we believe our statesmen are also human beings.

Now I know what a statesman is; he’s a dead politician. We need more statesmen.

Neither these statesmen nor their constituents sought in any way to use the Government for the interest of themselves or their section, or for the injury of a single member of the Confederacy.

And the annual meetings of the League’s Assembly are in effect official peace congresses binding on the participating states to an extent that most statesmen a quarter of a century ago would have regarded as utopian.

The south produced statesmen and soldiers, planters and doctors and lawyers and poets, but certainly no engineers and mechanics. Let Yankees adopt such low callings.

There are too many politicians in the world and too few statesmen.

America was founded by statesmen who were guided by strong moral and political principles. These principles have allowed this nation to flourish and continually improve itself.

It’s not always easy to make polite, lunchtime conversation with a mother who for decades has had international leaders and statesmen to engage with in potentially world-changing discussions.

Kissinger was surely one of the very few statesmen to try to do something positive to break the log jam of the Cold War; to try to end the war in Vietnam; to bring a halt to the cycle of war in the Middle East.

The president said nothing about the views of government in regard to the possibility of Carolinas seceding. This however was frequently spoken of by other statesmen at the North. I think they were unanimous in this, that no army would be sent here.

Re-examining our reasoning is not something that has come naturally to American statesmen.

If slavery, limited as it yet is, now threatens to subvert the Constitution, how can we as wise and prudent statesmen, enlarge its boundaries and increase its influence, and thus increase already impending dangers?

One of the finest statesmen of the present time is also a first-class scout, and that is Mr. Roosevelt, the late President of the United States of America.

It is hard to see taxing plastic bags as one of the great issues of our time that merits the foremost place in our finest statesmen’s minds. It is an absurd little issue, a picayune proportion of household waste, and a pointless inconvenience in people’s lives.

In the same way that we need statesmen to spare us the abjection of exercising power, we need scholars to spare us the abjection of learning.

Certain it is that a great responsibility rests upon the statesmen of all nations, not only to fulfill the promises for reduction in armaments, but to maintain the confidence of the people of the world in the hope of an enduring peace.

If the attainment of peace is the ultimate objective of all statesmen, it is, at the same time, something very ordinary, closely tied to the daily life of each individual.

We forget that the most successful statesmen have been professionals. Lincoln was a professional politician.

One of the great creative statesmen of our age was Franklin Roosevelt. He was creative precisely because he preferred experiment to ideology.

Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf; is better than a whole loaf.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

If we mean to have heroes, statesmen and philosophers, we should have learned women.

For if the Germans do not help defend the West, American and Canadian troops must cross the seas to do the job, and I venture to believe that the troops – if not the statesmen – regard this as an interference at least in their own domestic affairs.

Journalists are in the same madly rocking boat as diplomats and statesmen. Like them, when the Cold War ended, they looked for a new world order and found a new world disorder. If making and conducting foreign policy in today’s turbulent environment is difficult, so is practicing journalism.

Texas, with her superior natural advantages, must become a point of attraction, and the policy of establishing with her the earliest relations of friendship and commerce will not escape the eye of statesmen.

Moreover, war has become a thing potentially so terrible and destructive that it should have been the common aim of statesmen to put an end to it forever.

Letter writing was clearly important to Reagan. Even as president he kept dashing off letters to friends, pen pals, media people, statesmen, critics, and the kind of people who write to presidents never expecting a reply.

Responsible statesmen have only one choice – to do everything possible to prevent a nuclear catastrophe. Any other position is short-sighted; more so, it is suicidal.

At present, the most effective way of preventing war would be for statesmen to direct politics so as to support a sound nationalism. This leads to concordance between people of kindred race and languages, whereas the conquest and coercion of people of different race and language inevitably lead to new wars.