Conor Cruise O'Brien Quotes

The United Nations cannot do anything, and never could; it is not an animate entity or agent. It is a place, a stage, a forum and a shrine... a place to which powerful people can repair when they are fearful about the course on which their own rhetoric seems to be propelling them.

Nothing does more to activate Christian divisions than talk about Christian unity.

Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.

The sea which we think of separating the two island actually joins them.

Human nature doesn't include all human beings. There are human beings who are indifferent to politics, religion, virtually anything.

You can safely appeal to the UN in the comfortable certainty that it will let you down.

You are not an agnostic.....You are just a fat slob who is too lazy to go to Mass.

Irishness is not primarily a question of birth or blood or language; it is the condition of being involved in the Irish situation, and usually of being mauled by it.

British diplomats, constantly exposed to American political-ethical rhetoric, find their professional skills tested to the limits by the need to keep a straight face. For illustrations of what I mean, study the photographs of the expressions worn by Mr Douglas Hurd at any international conference involving all the Western allies.

A good man giving bad advice is more dangerous than a nasty man giving bad advice.

In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: 'Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.' Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.

The main thing that endears the United Nations to member governments, and so enables it to survive, is its proven capacity to fail... You can safely appeal to the UN in the comfortable certainty that it will let you down.