Daily Inspiration Quote by Hans Blix

Diplomatic understatement is its own kind of memoir, and Hans Blix leans on it here like a shield. "By and large" is the key phrase: a softener that pretends to summarize a complicated history while quietly refusing to litigate it. It signals competence and restraint, but it also reads as a practiced exit ramp from a story everyone remembers too vividly to treat as small talk.

The context is inseparable from the Iraq War run-up, when Blix, as the UN weapons inspector, became an unlikely global character: part technocrat, part foil. Washington wanted urgency and certainty; Blix kept returning with procedural language and requests for more time. That mismatch created a collision between bureaucratic evidence and political momentum. In that light, "were good" does double duty. It’s not a love letter to American diplomacy; it’s a refusal to perform grievance. If there was pressure, dismissal, even resentment, he declines to narrate it.

The subtext is tactical dignity. Blix frames the relationship as functional, almost managerial: disagreements can be filed under the category of normal operations. That posture protects the speaker and preserves the institution. A diplomat can’t easily say, "I was ignored", without sounding personal or vindictive; he can say, "By and large... good", and let listeners supply the missing footnotes.

It works because it invites the audience to read between the lines while keeping Blix above the shouting. The understatement isn’t evasive so much as engineered: a way to assert credibility by not pleading his case.