black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Politicians are like dogs, Their life expectancy is too short for a commitment to be bearable

Henry Kissinger

It is not often that nations learn from the past, even rarer that they draw the correct conclusions from it.
HENRY KISSINGER

Learning Nation Past
It has the added advantage of being true.
HENRY KISSINGER

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

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

Difficult Problem Success
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
Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There is too much fraternizing with the enemy.
HENRY KISSINGER

Enemy Win
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
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
For nations, history plays the role that character confers on human beings.
HENRY KISSINGER

Character History Human Nation Play
The reason that university politics is so vicious is because stakes are so small
HENRY KISSINGER

Politics Reason
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.
HENRY KISSINGER

Growth Issue Live Strong Time Weakness Wonderful
in international affairs a reputation for reliability is a more important asset than demonstrations of tactical cleverness.
HENRY KISSINGER

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

Man Talk Time
Every victory is only the price of admission to a more difficult problem
HENRY KISSINGER

Difficult Price Problem Victory
Empires have no interest in operating within an international system; they aspire to be the international system.
HENRY KISSINGER

Goal Nation Reality

Politicians are like dogs, Their life expectancy is too short for a commitment to be bearable

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Politicians are like dogs, Their life expectancy is too short for a commitment to be bearable

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Henry Kissinger Quotes