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Power without legitimacy tempts tests of strength; legitimacy without power tempts empty posturing.

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

Humble Impossible Myself Praise Stop Thankful Time
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
I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.
HENRY KISSINGER

Book Mistake Myself
in international affairs a reputation for reliability is a more important asset than demonstrations of tactical cleverness.
HENRY KISSINGER

Important Reputation Worth
The issues are too important to be left for the voters.
HENRY KISSINGER

Important Issue Vote
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
A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security
HENRY KISSINGER

Moral Perfection Policy Security
When statesmen want to gain time, they offer to talk.
HENRY KISSINGER

Man Talk Time
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 illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
HENRY KISSINGER

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

Oppression Rule
Policy is the art of the possible, the science of the relative.
HENRY KISSINGER

Art Policy Possible Science
The reason that university politics is so vicious is because stakes are so small
HENRY KISSINGER

Politics Reason
The Soviet Union would never be bound by agreements, Deng warned; it understood only the language of countervailing force.
HENRY KISSINGER

Force Language Understand
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
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

Power without legitimacy tempts tests of strength; legitimacy without power tempts empty posturing.

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Power without legitimacy tempts tests of strength; legitimacy without power tempts empty posturing.

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