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History is the school of statesmanship.
Sep 30, 2025
Statesmanship is developed in the hard knocks of general experience, private and public.
Men who think in lifetimes are of little use to statesmanship.
When everybody has got money they cut taxes, and when they're broke they raise them. That's statesmanship of the highest order.
There's a point, you know, where treachery is so complete and unashamed that it becomes statesmanship.
You call that statesmanship. I call it an emotional spasm.
The true statesman is the one who is willing to take risks.
Learn to think impartially.
It is well indeed for out land that we of this generation have learned to think nationally.
It is seldom that statesmen have the option of choosing between a good and an evil.
The statesman cannot govern without stability of belief, true or false.
In statesmanship there are predicaments from which it is impossible to escape without some wrongdoing.
A constitutional statesman is in general a man of common opinions and uncommon abilities.
And, consequently, the art of propaganda or public information becomes one of the most powerful forms of directive statesmanship.
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 art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence.
Statistical science is indispensable to modern statesmanship. In legislation as in physical science it is beginning to be understood that we can control terrestrial forces only by obeying their laws. The legislator must formulate in his statutes not only the national will, but also those great laws of social life revealed by statistics.
You can always get the truth from an American statesman after he has turned seventy, or given up all hope of the Presidency.
If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness.
The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opposition than from his fervent supporters.
My father was a statesman, I'm a political woman. My father was a saint. I'm not.
The supreme function of statesmanship is to provide against preventable evils.
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.
The idea that the object of constitutions is not to confirm the predominance of any interest, but to prevent it; to preserve with equal care the independence of labour and the security of property; to make the rich safe against envy, and the poor against oppression, marks the highest level attained by the statesmanship of Greece.
Stern men with empires in their brains.
A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.
The difference between being an elder statesman And posing successfully as an elder statesman Is practically negligible.
Statesman create; ordinary leaders consume. The ordinary leader is satisfied with ameliorating the environment, not transforming it; a statesman must be a visionary and an educator.
A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
If Coolidge were a stock, he'd be a buy. The experts have historically ranked Coolidge in the bottom quartile or bottom half of all presidents. But his economic performance and his statesmanship suggest Coolidge belongs in the top quarter of presidents. The disparity between the Coolidge price and Coolidge value is huge. So revision is warranted.
Statesmen have to bend to the collective will of their peoples or be broken.
The chief element in the art of statesmanship under modern conditions is the ability to elucidate the confused and clamorous interests which converge upon the seat of government. It is an ability to penetrate from the na?ve self-interest of each group to its permanent and real interest. Statesmanship consists in giving the people not what they want but what they will learn to want.
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.
To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.
Statesmen are not only liable to give an account of what they say or do in public, but there is a busy inquiry made into their very meals, beds, marriages, and every other sportive or serious action.
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.
If, in 2008, I could have not been in equities, I wouldn't have been in equities. If I could have not bet on the Seahawks in the Super Bowl, I wouldn't have bet on the Seahawks. Life and statesmanship are not lived with the benefit of hindsight.
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.
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.
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.
I believe that the public temper is such that the voters of the land are prepared to support the party which gives the best promise of administering the government in the honest, simple, and plain manner which is consistent with its character and purposes. They have learned that mystery and concealment in the management of their affairs cover tricks and betrayal. The statesmanship they require consists in honesty and frugality, a prompt response to the needs of the people as they arise, and a vigilant protection of all their varied interests.
There are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen.
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.
Ambassadors are the eye and ear of states.
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.
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today.
The essence of statesmanship is not a rigid adherence to the past, but a prudent and probing concern for the future.
It is wise statesmanship which suggests that in time of peace we must prepare for war, and it is no less a wise benevolence that makes preparation in the hour of peace for assuaging the ills that are sure to accompany war.
There are those who view the abolitionists as just maniacs, apolitical fanatics who helped to cause the war, and Lincoln is the model of responsible statesmanship. I think that is a misconception, the idea that Lincoln knows what's possible and the abolitionists don't.