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If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.

Henry Kissinger

If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.
HENRY KISSINGER

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

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

Commitment Dog Expectation Growth Life Politics
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
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
The goal of the tribute system was to foster deference, not to extract economic benefit or to dominate foreign societies militarily.
HENRY KISSINGER

Goal Oppression
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
Behind the slogans lay an intellectual vacuum.
HENRY KISSINGER

Intellectual Politics
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
It has the added advantage of being true.
HENRY KISSINGER

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

Choice Early Habit Important
George Bernard Shaw: There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.
HENRY KISSINGER

Desire Heart Life Lose Tragedy Yourself
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
Americans have a tendency to believe that when there’s a problem there must be a solution.
HENRY KISSINGER

Believe Problem

If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.

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If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.

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