Richard Holbrooke Quotes

In diplomacy, as in life itself, one often learns more from failures than from successes. Triumphs will seem, in retrospect, to be foreordained, a series of brilliant actions and decisions that may in fact have been lucky or inadvertent, whereas failures illuminate paths and pitfalls to be avoided.

A peace deal requires agreements, and you don't make agreements with your friends, you make agreements with your enemies.

Know something about something. Don’t just present your wonderful self to the world. Constantly amass knowledge and offer it around.

I think history is continuous. It doesn't begin or end on Pearl Harbor Day or the day Lyndon Johnson withdraws from the presidency or on 9/11. You have to learn from the past but not be imprisoned by it. You need to take counsel of history but never be imprisoned by it.

Bureaucracies have a natural tendency not to cooperate, coordinate or consolidate with each other. They won't cooperate with each other - unless they are forced to do so by political level authority.

World War I was not inevitable, as many historians say. It could have been avoided, and it was a diplomatically botched negotiation.

Diplomacy is like jazz: endless variations on a theme.

It's an improvisation on a theme. You know where you want to go, but you don't know how to get there. It's not linear.

As countries grapple with modernization, people who are left behind tend to hold firmer and firmer to their view of the evil of modernity.

The controlled chaos is one way to get creativity. The intensity of it, the physical rush, the intimacy created the kind of dialogue that leads to synergy...

I still believe in the possibility of the United States, with all its will and all its strength, and I don't just mean military, persevering against any challenge. I still believe in that.

The United Nations is an indispensable but deeply flawed organization. It is valuable to the United States, and the United States is invaluable to it. We need to reform it.

Nothing generates more heat in the government than the question of who is chosen to participate in important meetings.

MEMRI allows an audience far beyond the Arabic-speaking world to observe the wide variety of Arab voices speaking through the media, schoolbooks, and pulpits to their own people. What one hears is often astonishing, sometimes frightening, and always important. Most importantly, it includes the newly-emerging liberal voices of reform and hope, as well as disturbing echoes of ancient hatreds. Without the valuable research of MEMRI, the non-Arabic speaking world would not have this indispensable window.

A world without the United Nations or with a paralyzed United Nations would be far more costly to all of us and far more dangerous to peace and stability.

"I tell you," he [Milosevic] continued, "Izetbegovic has earned Sarajevo by not abandoning it. He's one tough guy. It's his". These words were probably the most astonishing and unexpected of the conference.

Our enemy is Al Qaeda and its allies, people who have publicly said they wish to attack the United States again, people who have publicly called on nuclear physicists and engineers to help them gain access to nuclear weapons, which, as the whole world knows, Pakistan has.

If a country denies it has AIDS, that country will inevitably become an even greater victim.

There is a split between Muslims who want to practice their faith in peace and tolerance with other religions and other people, and these extreme, radical fundamentalists who have shown a total lack of tolerance for people with different views, starting with people who they don't think are good Muslims, and going on to include Christians and Jews.

It is essential that the foreign forces who have invaded and occupy large parts of the Congo halt their offensive action

United Nations peacekeepers are going all over the world spreading AIDS even while they're trying to bring peace. What a supreme irony.

The World War II generation believed the United States could do anything - anything... And Vietnam was a shattering experience for everyone.