Quotes by Richard Holbrooke - Page 1

Elections are rarely perfect.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Rarely
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Diplomacy is like jazz: endless variations on a theme.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Diplomacy
Endless
Jazz
Theme
Variation
Like
Variations
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We should not be surprised that democracy is imperfect even in Western countries.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Imperfect
Western
Surprised
Western Countries
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If a country denies it has AIDS, that country will inevitably become an even greater victim.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Aids
Country
Victim
Denies
Inevitably
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In short, you can't let the deadline define the mission. The mission has to define the duration.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Deadline
Duration
Define
Mission
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Pakistani politics is complicated, and I think it's not something a foreigner can easily assimilate and understand.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Assimilate
Easily
Foreigner
Pakistani
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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.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Linear
Theme
Want
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Nothing generates more heat in the government than the question of who is chosen to participate in important meetings.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Government
Chosen
Heat
Important
Meetings
Participate
Question
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You have to test your hypothesis against other theories. Certainty in the face of complex situations is very dangerous.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Certainty
Hypothesis
Complex
Test
Theories
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It is essential that the foreign forces who have invaded and occupy large parts of the Congo halt their offensive action
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Action
Essentials
Offensive
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A peace deal requires agreements, and you don't make agreements with your friends, you make agreements with your enemies.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Agreement
Deals
Enemy
Agreements
Peace Your Enemies
Enemies
Peace Enemies Your
Requires
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Know something about something. Don’t just present your wonderful self to the world. Constantly amass knowledge and offer it around.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Self
Wonderful
World
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World War I was not inevitable, as many historians say. It could have been avoided, and it was a diplomatically botched negotiation.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
War
Avoided
Inevitable
Negotiation
World
World War I
Historians
World War
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I have worked in every - every Democratic administration since the Kennedy administration, and I know dysfunctionality when I see it.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Administration
Democratic
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United Nations peacekeepers are going all over the world spreading AIDS even while they're trying to bring peace. What a supreme irony.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Aids
Irony
Nations
Supreme
Trying
United Nations
World
Spreading
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I'm a product of the Kennedy era. Kennedy's Inaugural plus the accident of Dean Rusk brought me into the government. Those were my values.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Dean
Plus
Accident
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As countries grapple with modernization, people who are left behind tend to hold firmer and firmer to their view of the evil of modernity.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Country
Modernity
People
Views
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The male elites that run most countries are exceedingly uncomfortable with the subject of AIDS because it's a sexually transmitted disease.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Aids
Disease
Elites
Sexually
Uncomfortable
Male
Exceedingly
Transmitted
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The World War II generation believed the United States could do anything - anything... And Vietnam was a shattering experience for everyone.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
War
Generations
Shattering
United States
Vietnam
World War Ii
Believed
World War
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I think Americans understand that in Afghanistan, unlike in Iraq and Vietnam, we are fighting an enemy allied with the people who attacked us on 9/11.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Afghanistan
Vietnam
Allied
Attacked
Unlike
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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.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Stability
World
Would Be
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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...
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Chaos
Creativity
Way
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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.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Flawed
Indispensable
Invaluable
Nations
Organization
Reform
United Nations
United States
Valuable
Deeply
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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.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Believe
Mean
Military
Possibility
Persevering
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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.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Government
Levels
Political
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"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.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Guy
Tough
Unexpected
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You will never catch up with the spread of AIDS no matter how much money, no matter how many antiretrovirals are put into the system, unless you stop its growth. And the only way to stop its growth is prevention.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Aids
Prevention
Spread
Catch
How Much Money
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There are certain kinds of second-tier confrontations which the U.S. does not need to get directly involved in. However, even in the second tier of problems, our intervention as a friend to both sides is important.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Both Sides
Confrontation
Intervention
Sides
Directly
However
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People in uniform are not sacrosanct. They don't have all the answers. The use of force is a political decision at its core, in terms of its objectives; then the military, as the experts, must be brought in to tell you how to do it.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Answers
Core
Decision
Experts
Military
Objectives
Brought
Uniform
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By the way, if you do your job on behalf of your country, you have meetings where you put your position forward strongly, and the other side does the same thing. And I've had plenty of meetings in my career that really were heated, people yelling at each other.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Behalf
Plenty
Yelling
Heated
Same Thing
Strongly
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I'm not a wide-eyed imperialist who wants to see Americans manning outposts all over the world. Not outposts to freedom in the cold war cliche, but islands of stability and seas of ethnic strife. That is not what anyone should feel comfortable seeing Americans doing.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
War
Cold
Cold War
Comfortable
Islands
Seeing
Stability
Strife
War Freedom World
Anyone
Ethnic
Imperialist
Seas
Wants
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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.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Johnson
Needs
Past
Presidency
Thinking
Begin
Continuous
Counsel
Harbor
Imprisoned
Lyndon
Lyndon Johnson
Pearl
Pearl Harbor
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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.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Access
Allies
Enemy
Engineers
Nuclear
Nuclear Weapons
Pakistan
People
Weapons
Wish
World People Enemy
Al
Attack
World People Help
Gain
Physicists
Publicly
Qaeda
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The United States supports the reintegration of people who have fought with the Taliban into Afghan society provided they: one, renounce al Qaeda, two, lay down their arms and renounce violence, and three, participate in the public political life of the country in accordance with the constitution.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Afghan
Arms
Political Life
Renounce
Taliban
Accordance
Al
Fought
Lay
Participate
Provided
Qaeda
Supports
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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.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Decision
Pitfalls
Triumph
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There's no question that the next generation of terrorists, rather than going for small, little dramas, will go for the big one. They now understand that the way to get the world's attention is not strapping bombs to themselves in a pizza parlour, but to do something so horrific it gets you into the Guinness Book of World Records for terrorism.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Bombs
Guinness
Horrific
Pizza
Terrorism
World Records
World Terrorism Will
Big One
Dramas
No Question
Terrorists
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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.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Christian
Thinking
Views
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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.
Richard Holbrooke / Diplomat
Echoes
Media
Voice
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