Policy is the art of the possible, the science of the relative.
HENRY KISSINGEROrder always requires a subtle balance of restraint, force, and legitimacy.
More Henry Kissinger Quotes
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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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Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
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Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There is too much fraternizing with the enemy.
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Americans have a tendency to believe that when there’s a problem there must be a solution.
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In short, the end justifies the means.
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I want to thank you for stopping the applause. It is impossible for me to look humble for any period of time.
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If Chinese exceptionalism represented the claims of a universal empire, Japanese exceptionalism sprang from the insecurities of an island nation borrowing heavily from its neighbor, but fearful of being dominated by it.
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Every victory is only the price of admission to a more difficult problem
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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.
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Americans hold that every problem has a solution; Chinese think that each solution is an admission ticket to a new set of problems.
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Don’t be too ambitious. Do the most important thing you can think of doing every year and then your career will take care of itself.
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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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The state is a fragile organization, and the statesman does not have the moral right to risk its survival on ethical restraint.
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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.
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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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Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies.
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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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In the end, peace can be achieved only by hegemony or by balance of power.
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Politicians are like dogs, Their life expectancy is too short for a commitment to be bearable
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A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security
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Poor old Germany. Too big for Europe, too small for the world
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For nations, history plays the role that character confers on human beings.
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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.
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If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.
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Who controls the money controls the world.
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It’s a pity both sides can’t lose (commenting on Iran-Iraq war, 1980 – 1988)
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