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A country whose security depends on producing a genius in each generation sets itself a task no society has ever met.

Henry Kissinger

Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.
HENRY KISSINGER

Difficult Problem Success
Politicians are like dogs, Their life expectancy is too short for a commitment to be bearable
HENRY KISSINGER

Commitment Dog Expectation Growth Life Politics
Order always requires a subtle balance of restraint, force, and legitimacy.
HENRY KISSINGER

Force Rule
In short, the end justifies the means.
HENRY KISSINGER

End Justice
Poor old Germany. Too big for Europe, too small for the world
HENRY KISSINGER

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

Man Talk Time
It’s a pity both sides can’t lose (commenting on Iran-Iraq war, 1980 – 1988)
HENRY KISSINGER

Lose War
A Harvard study has shown that in fifteen cases in history where a rising and an established power interacted, ten ended in war.
HENRY KISSINGER

End Establishment History Power Rise War
Chinese thinkers developed strategic thought that placed a premium on victory through psychological advantage and preached the avoidance of direct conflict.
HENRY KISSINGER

Avoidance Development Direction Thinking Victory
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 KISSINGER

Expectation Nation Respect
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
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
HENRY KISSINGER

Legal Politics Time
Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.
HENRY KISSINGER

Appearance Bad Politics
Intellectuals analyze the operations of international systems; statesmen build them.
HENRY KISSINGER

Intellectual Politics
The war is just when the intention that causes it to be undertaken is just. The will is therefore the principle element that must be considered, not the means, He who intends to kill the guilty sometimes faultlessly shed the blood of the innocents
HENRY KISSINGER

Guilty Himself Kill Principle War Willing
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

Class History Oneself
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

Fear Insecurity Nation Represent
History knows no resting places and no plateaus
HENRY KISSINGER

History Nature Place
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

Decision Seek Victory
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it’s their fault.
HENRY KISSINGER

Funny Mistake People Thinking Yourself
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
A country whose security depends on producing a genius in each generation sets itself a task no society has ever met.
HENRY KISSINGER

Genius Security
The reason that university politics is so vicious is because stakes are so small
HENRY KISSINGER

Politics Reason
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
Postcolonial countries. All have sought to overcome the legacy of colonial.
HENRY KISSINGER

Oppression Rule
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
The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
HENRY KISSINGER

Himself Leadership Nation People

A country whose security depends on producing a genius in each generation sets itself a task no society has ever met.

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A country whose security depends on producing a genius in each generation sets itself a task no society has ever met.

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