Need an epigraph!

March 16, 2007 6:41 AM

Epigraphfilter: Help me think of something good (or, barring that, something funny) to kick off my senior thesis. The paper is about why nations sometimes sneak around the established, public, legally recognized way of writing treaties when they cooperate.

So, I'm looking for a poem, excerpt, bon mot, lyric, or similar that would make a clever introduction to my thesis.

Background on the topic: officially, states cooperate by signing public, ratified, legalized treaties. In reality, states also make all sorts of informal deals between heads of state, secret understandings never meant to reach their publics, and plenty of documents drafted specifically so as to avoid the application of international law. I'm testing some theories on why this is the case.

Some ideas I've followed up about themes for the epigraph:

• informality
• the strength of promises
• keeping secrets
• going through the "back channels"
• making unenforceable deals
• ...

At any rate, my previous plan (before it occurred to me to query the hive mind) was a lengthy excerpt from Grotius on the utility of nations keeping their promises, followed by a one-line lyric about broken promises (couldn't find a good one, actually). Surely you can help me do better...

posted by electric_counterpoint to Writing & Language (10 answers total)

how about

"Politics makes for Strange Bedfellows, and I have been in a lot of beds..."
---Scipio, son of Flora

posted by cosmicbandito at 6:51 AM on March 16, 2007

I think you should start with the classic Vietnam-USA talks in Paris, where they spent three years beforehand arguing over the seating arrangement.

Others: The Geneva Accord on Palestinian Statehood which did not go through official channels.
posted by parmanparman at 7:29 AM on March 16, 2007

Didn't de Gaule say something like: "Treaties are like young girls, they last while they last."?

Herbert Hoover: Peace is not made at the council table or by treaties, but in the hearts of men.
posted by Falconetti at 7:35 AM on March 16, 2007

"A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise."

"No enterprise is more likely to succeed than one concealed from the enemy until it is ripe for execution."

a couple from Machiavelli
posted by Leon at 7:43 AM on March 16, 2007

Not quite sure if it fits, but there's this from Churchill on contemporary diplomacy:

St. George would arrive in Cappadocia accompanied, not by a horse, but by a secretariat. He would be armed, not by a lance, but by several flexible formulas . . . He would propose a conference with the dragon. He would then lend the dragon a lot of money. The maiden's release would be referred to Geneva or New York, the dragon reserving all rights meanwhile.

posted by Abiezer at 8:06 AM on March 16, 2007

Perhaps someone else could find the quote from Bismark about treaties only existing while in the national interest.
posted by klangklangston at 9:19 AM on March 16, 2007

"Like roses and young girls." Treaty, or treaties. This is a good bit.
posted by steef at 11:00 AM on March 16, 2007

Two from Talleyrand, the greatest of diplomats:

1. “A diplomat who says “yes” means “maybe", a diplomat who says “maybe" means “no”, and a diplomat who says “no” is no diplomat.”

2. “Since the masses are always eager to believe something, for their benefit nothing is so easy to arrange as facts.”
posted by Chrischris at 11:01 AM on March 16, 2007 [2 favorites]

I'm thinking there has to be something from The Godfather or some other crime saga. Or Castiglione. Have to give it some thought.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:11 PM on March 16, 2007

There's a quote that I don't remember well that might be useful. It's something to the effect that "more history has been made by secret handshakes than all wars, treaties and constitutions combined". I massacred it, but the gist is that the import of the informal far outweighs that of the formal.
posted by B-squared at 6:58 PM on March 16, 2007