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Ambassadors, obedience to instructions by: "It should be noted that unswerving obedience fits only with precise and peremptory commands. Ambassadors have somewhat freer duties the filling of which, in several respects, entirely depends on their own dispositions. They do not simply execute, but form also and direct by their own advice the will of their masters."
— Michel de Montaigne
Ambassadors, qualifications of: Distinguished credentials in other fields are not a self-evident qualification for appointment as ambassador. A genius for battlefield maneuver does not necessarily presage a talent for the peaceful conciliation of differences. The ability to make a profit from an idea or an enterprise cannot be taken to imply political acumen, tact, or cultural adaptability. The capacity to do brilliant academic research and deliver thoughtful lectures does not certify a facility for listening, interpreting the subtleties of foreign leaders, and reacting deftly to them on the spot. Political skill honed in parliamentary maneuver at home may not translate into adroit practice of the art of the possible abroad. The capacity to represent private interests effectively in the courts may not foretell a capacity to advocate both public and private interests persuasively to a foreign system of government and society.
Ambassadors, qualifications of: "An ambassador should be a trained theologian, should be well-versed in Aristotle and Plato, and should be able at a moment's notice to solve the most abtruse problems in correct dialectical form; he should also be expert in mathematics, architecture, music, physics, and civil and canon law. He should speak and write Latin fluently and must also be proficient in Greek, Spanish, French, German and Turkish. While being a trained classical scholar, a historian, a geographer and an expert in military science, he must also have a cultured taste for poetry. And above all he must be of excellent family, rich and endowed with a fine physical presence."
— Ottaviano Maggi, 1596
Ambassadors, qualities of effective: To be effective, ambassadors must exemplify intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, foresight, courage, a sense of humor, and sternness. By doing so they may compensate, in part, for the not-infrequent lack of these qualities in the national leaders in whose name they act.
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Chas W. Freeman Jr. (The Diplomat's Dictionary)