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For nations, history plays the role that character confers on human beings.

Henry Kissinger

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

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

Man Talk Time
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
For nations, history plays the role that character confers on human beings.
HENRY KISSINGER

Character History Human Nation Play
In effect, none of the most important countries which must build a new world order have had any experience with the multi-state system that is emerging. Never before has a new world order had to be assembled from so many different perceptions, or on so global a scale.
HENRY KISSINGER

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

Difficult Problem Success
Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.
HENRY KISSINGER

Appearance Bad Politics
To undertake a journey on a road never before traveled requires character and courage: character because the choice is not obvious; courage because the road will be lonely at first. And the statesman must then inspire his people to persist in the endeavor.
HENRY KISSINGER

Character Choice Courage Inspirational Journey Lonely People Road Travel
History knows no resting places and no plateaus
HENRY KISSINGER

History Nature Place
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
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
Intellectuals analyze the operations of international systems; statesmen build them.
HENRY KISSINGER

Intellectual Politics

For nations, history plays the role that character confers on human beings.

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For nations, history plays the role that character confers on human beings.

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