If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.
HENRY KISSINGERThere can’t be a crisis next week, my schedule is already full.
More Henry Kissinger Quotes
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It has the added advantage of being true.
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A country whose security depends on producing a genius in each generation sets itself a task no society has ever met.
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Policy is the art of the possible, the science of the relative.
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Intellectuals analyze the operations of international systems; statesmen build them.
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A turbulent history has taught Chinese leaders that not every problem has a solution and that too great an emphasis on total mastery over specific events could upset the harmony of the universe.
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Covert action should not be confused with missionary work.
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If history teaches anything it is that there can be no peace without equilibrium and no justice without restraint.
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It’s a pity both sides can’t lose (commenting on Iran-Iraq war, 1980 – 1988)
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Woe to the statesman whose arguments for entering a war are not as convincing at its end as they were at the beginning, Bismarck had cautioned.
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Can governmental orders be invented from scratch by intelligent thinkers, or is the range of choice limited by underlying organic and cultural realities (the Burkean view)?
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Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.
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For nations, history plays the role that character confers on human beings.
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Chinese thinkers developed strategic thought that placed a premium on victory through psychological advantage and preached the avoidance of direct conflict.
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It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a matter of what is perceived to be true.
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The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it’s their fault.
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The goal of the tribute system was to foster deference, not to extract economic benefit or to dominate foreign societies militarily.
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History is the memory of States.
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In the end, peace can be achieved only by hegemony or by balance of power.
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A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.
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Yet freedom cannot be secured or sustained without a framework of order to keep the peace.
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Politicians are like dogs, Their life expectancy is too short for a commitment to be bearable
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What distinguishes Sun Tzu from Western writers on strategy is the emphasis on the psychological and political elements over the purely military.
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When statesmen want to gain time, they offer to talk.
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Later I learned to improve my forecasting—if necessary by asking the visitor in advance what subjects he intended to raise with Nixon.
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order without freedom, even if sustained by momentary exaltation, eventually creates its own counterpoise; yet freedom cannot be secured or sustained without a framework of order to keep the peace.
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George Bernard Shaw: There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.
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