For Roosevelt, if a nation was unable or unwilling to act to defend its own interests, it could not expect others to respect them. Inevitably,
HENRY KISSINGERPower without legitimacy tempts tests of strength; legitimacy without power tempts empty posturing.
More Henry Kissinger Quotes
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America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests
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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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Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God
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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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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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The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.
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Because complexity inhibits flexibility, early choices are especially crucial.
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When statesmen want to gain time, they offer to talk.
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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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Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
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The Soviet Union would never be bound by agreements, Deng warned; it understood only the language of countervailing force.
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The Art of War articulates a doctrine less of territorial conquest than of psychological dominance; it was the way the North Vietnamese fought America.
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Every victory is only the price of admission to a more difficult problem
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The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
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In effect, none of the most important countries which must build a new world order have had any experience with the multi-state system that is emerging. Never before has a new world order had to be assembled from so many different perceptions, or on so global a scale.
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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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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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A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.
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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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If chess is about the decisive battle, wei qi is about the protracted campaign. The chess player aims for total victory. The wei qi player seeks relative advantage.
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Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.
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The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
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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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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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Since Peter the Great, Russia had been expanding at the rate of one Belgium per year.
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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.
HENRY KISSINGER