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It is one of history’s ironies that Communism, advertised as a classless society, tended to breed a privileged class of feudal proportions.

Henry Kissinger

If history teaches anything it is that there can be no peace without equilibrium and no justice without restraint.
HENRY KISSINGER

History Justice Peace Teaching
In his essay, ‘Perpetual Peace,’ the philosopher, Immanuel Kant, argued that perpetual peace would eventually come to the world in one of two ways, by human insight or by conflicts and catastrophes of a magnitude that left humanity no other choice. We are at such a juncture.
HENRY KISSINGER

Human Humanity Nature Peace Philosophy World
Yet freedom cannot be secured or sustained without a framework of order to keep the peace.
HENRY KISSINGER

Freedom Peace Rule Secure
It’s a pity both sides can’t lose (commenting on Iran-Iraq war, 1980 – 1988)
HENRY KISSINGER

Lose War
History is the memory of States.
HENRY KISSINGER

History Memories
Empires have no interest in operating within an international system; they aspire to be the international system.
HENRY KISSINGER

Goal Nation Reality
For the balance of power is never static; its components are in constant flux.
HENRY KISSINGER

Philosophy Power Science
The art of crisis management is to raise the stakes to where the adversary will not follow, but in a manner that avoids a tit for tat.
HENRY KISSINGER

Art Avoid Revenge
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.
HENRY KISSINGER

Creation Freedom Peace Rule
When statesmen want to gain time, they offer to talk.
HENRY KISSINGER

Man Talk Time
Postcolonial countries. All have sought to overcome the legacy of colonial.
HENRY KISSINGER

Oppression Rule
Intellectuals analyze the operations of international systems; statesmen build them.
HENRY KISSINGER

Intellectual Politics
Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God
HENRY KISSINGER

Blessing Destiny Eyes God Leadership People Play
Later I learned to improve my forecasting—if necessary by asking the visitor in advance what subjects he intended to raise with Nixon.
HENRY KISSINGER

Learning Myself Necessary
Because complexity inhibits flexibility, early choices are especially crucial.
HENRY KISSINGER

Choice Early Habit Important
A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security
HENRY KISSINGER

Moral Perfection Policy Security
I want to thank you for stopping the applause. It is impossible for me to look humble for any period of time.
HENRY KISSINGER

Humble Impossible Myself Praise Stop Thankful Time
In the end, peace can be achieved only by hegemony or by balance of power.
HENRY KISSINGER

Achievement End Peace Power
Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies.
HENRY KISSINGER

Nation Rule Trust
A more immediate issue concerns North Korea, to which Bismarck’s nineteenth-century aphorism surely applies: We live in a wondrous time, in which the strong is weak because of his scruples and the weak grows strong because of his audacity.
HENRY KISSINGER

Growth Issue Live Strong Time Weakness Wonderful
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
HENRY KISSINGER

Legal Politics Time
It is not often that nations learn from the past, even rarer that they draw the correct conclusions from it.
HENRY KISSINGER

Learning Nation Past
A diamond is a chunk of coal that did well under pressure.
HENRY KISSINGER

Improvement Inspirational Success
Behind the slogans lay an intellectual vacuum.
HENRY KISSINGER

Intellectual Politics
Americans hold that every problem has a solution; Chinese think that each solution is an admission ticket to a new set of problems.
HENRY KISSINGER

Perspective Problem Thinking
The goal of the tribute system was to foster deference, not to extract economic benefit or to dominate foreign societies militarily.
HENRY KISSINGER

Goal Oppression
Politicians are like dogs, Their life expectancy is too short for a commitment to be bearable
HENRY KISSINGER

Commitment Dog Expectation Growth Life Politics

It is one of history’s ironies that Communism, advertised as a classless society, tended to breed a privileged class of feudal proportions.

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It is one of history’s ironies that Communism, advertised as a classless society, tended to breed a privileged class of feudal proportions.

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