“Let me frankly state that I see two great difficulties with this proposal. In view of your public position, such action on our part would inevitably produce worldwide speculation that discussions were under way and would impair the privacy and secrecy of those discussions. Secondly, there would inevitably be grave concern on our part whether your government would make use of such action by us to improve its military position.”

1962, First letter to Nikita Khrushchev

Harvard University address (1978)

Michael Knipe, "Mr Smith agrees to majority rule coming within two years", The Times, September 25, 1976, p. 1.
Statement (September 24, 1976) on negotiations in South Africa which proposed a phased transition to majority rule.

Broadcast (30 July 1950), quoted in The Times (31 July 1950), p. 4.
1950s

Source: The Castle (1926)

1990s, Letter to Patrick Leahy (1999)

Variant: He was a dreamer, a thinker, a speculative philosopher... or, as his wife would have it, an idiot.

The Organized Mind (2014)
Context: Former secretary of state George Shultz, reflecting on forty years of United States foreign policy from 1970 to the present, said, “When I think about all the money we spent on bombs and munitions, and our failures in Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the world... Instead of advancing our agenda using force, we should have instead built schools and hospitals in these countries, improving the lives of their children. By now, those children would have grown into positions of influence, and they would be grateful to us instead of hating us.

1920s, Freedom and its Obligations (1924)