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.
HENRY KISSINGEREach success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.
More Henry Kissinger Quotes
-
-
A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.
HENRY KISSINGER -
The goal of the tribute system was to foster deference, not to extract economic benefit or to dominate foreign societies militarily.
HENRY KISSINGER -
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.
HENRY KISSINGER -
Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God
HENRY KISSINGER -
Because complexity inhibits flexibility, early choices are especially crucial.
HENRY KISSINGER -
History is the memory of States.
HENRY KISSINGER -
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 -
When statesmen want to gain time, they offer to talk.
HENRY KISSINGER -
A diamond is a chunk of coal that did well under pressure.
HENRY KISSINGER -
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it’s their fault.
HENRY KISSINGER -
The Soviet Union would never be bound by agreements, Deng warned; it understood only the language of countervailing force.
HENRY KISSINGER -
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.
HENRY KISSINGER -
Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There is too much fraternizing with the enemy.
HENRY KISSINGER -
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 -
Chinese thinkers developed strategic thought that placed a premium on victory through psychological advantage and preached the avoidance of direct conflict.
HENRY KISSINGER -
Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.
HENRY KISSINGER -
America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests
HENRY KISSINGER -
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 -
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
HENRY KISSINGER -
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.
HENRY KISSINGER -
To undertake a journey on a road never before traveled requires character and courage: character because the choice is not obvious; courage because the road will be lonely at first. And the statesman must then inspire his people to persist in the endeavor.
HENRY KISSINGER -
Covert action should not be confused with missionary work.
HENRY KISSINGER -
Poor old Germany. Too big for Europe, too small for the world
HENRY KISSINGER -
Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
HENRY KISSINGER -
What distinguishes Sun Tzu from Western writers on strategy is the emphasis on the psychological and political elements over the purely military.
HENRY KISSINGER -
I want to thank you for stopping the applause. It is impossible for me to look humble for any period of time.
HENRY KISSINGER