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America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests

Henry Kissinger

Order always requires a subtle balance of restraint, force, and legitimacy.
HENRY KISSINGER

Force Rule
Because complexity inhibits flexibility, early choices are especially crucial.
HENRY KISSINGER

Choice Early Habit Important
A diamond is a chunk of coal that did well under pressure.
HENRY KISSINGER

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

Difficult Problem Success
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
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 KISSINGER

Argument Beginning End War
It has the added advantage of being true.
HENRY KISSINGER

True
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
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
HENRY KISSINGER

Legal Politics Time
For the balance of power is never static; its components are in constant flux.
HENRY KISSINGER

Philosophy Power Science
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
History is the memory of States.
HENRY KISSINGER

History Memories
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
I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.
HENRY KISSINGER

Book Mistake Myself
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
Postcolonial countries. All have sought to overcome the legacy of colonial.
HENRY KISSINGER

Oppression Rule
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
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
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
Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
HENRY KISSINGER

Politics Reputation
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 nations, history plays the role that character confers on human beings.
HENRY KISSINGER

Character History Human Nation Play
A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.
HENRY KISSINGER

Alone Deserve Leadership
The issues are too important to be left for the voters.
HENRY KISSINGER

Important Issue Vote
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
Politicians are like dogs, Their life expectancy is too short for a commitment to be bearable
HENRY KISSINGER

Commitment Dog Expectation Growth Life Politics
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

America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests

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America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests

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