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Americans have a tendency to believe that when there’s a problem there must be a solution.

Henry Kissinger

When statesmen want to gain time, they offer to talk.
HENRY KISSINGER

Man Talk Time
Because complexity inhibits flexibility, early choices are especially crucial.
HENRY KISSINGER

Choice Early Habit Important
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 Live Strong Time Weakness
Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.
HENRY KISSINGER

Appearance Bad Politics
in international affairs a reputation for reliability is a more important asset than demonstrations of tactical cleverness.
HENRY KISSINGER

Choice Important Reputation Worth
Order always requires a subtle balance of restraint, force, and legitimacy.
HENRY KISSINGER

Force Rule
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

Ambitious Care Career Important Thinking
Intellectuals analyze the operations of international systems; statesmen build them.
HENRY KISSINGER

Intellectual Politics
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
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)?
HENRY KISSINGER

Choice Government Intelligence Limitation Thinking
The state is a fragile organization, and the statesman does not have the moral right to risk its survival on ethical restraint.
HENRY KISSINGER

Moral Right Risk Survive
What distinguishes Sun Tzu from Western writers on strategy is the emphasis on the psychological and political elements over the purely military.
HENRY KISSINGER

Strategy Writing
George Bernard Shaw: There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.
HENRY KISSINGER

Desire Heart Life Lose Tragedy Yourself
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
History is the memory of States.
HENRY KISSINGER

History Memories
The Art of War articulates a doctrine less of territorial conquest than of psychological dominance; it was the way the North Vietnamese fought America.
HENRY KISSINGER

Art Fight War

Americans have a tendency to believe that when there’s a problem there must be a solution.

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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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