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

Henry Kissinger

A country whose security depends on producing a genius in each generation sets itself a task no society has ever met.
HENRY KISSINGER

Genius Security
Empires have no interest in operating within an international system; they aspire to be the international system.
HENRY KISSINGER

Goal Nation Reality
Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.
HENRY KISSINGER

Difficult Problem Success
Because complexity inhibits flexibility, early choices are especially crucial.
HENRY KISSINGER

Choice Early Habit Important
Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God
HENRY KISSINGER

Blessing Destiny Eyes God Leadership People Play
Behind the slogans lay an intellectual vacuum.
HENRY KISSINGER

Intellectual Politics
Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies.
HENRY KISSINGER

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

Force Rule
Yet freedom cannot be secured or sustained without a framework of order to keep the peace.
HENRY KISSINGER

Freedom Peace Rule Secure
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
There can’t be a crisis next week, my schedule is already full.
HENRY KISSINGER

Funny Future
America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests
HENRY KISSINGER

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

Path Road Success Yourself
Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
HENRY KISSINGER

Knowledge Life Live Lost Philosophy Wisdom
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
I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.
HENRY KISSINGER

Book Mistake Myself
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
Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
HENRY KISSINGER

One Liner Power
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
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
Since Peter the Great, Russia had been expanding at the rate of one Belgium per year.
HENRY KISSINGER

Greatness Growth War
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
If history teaches anything it is that there can be no peace without equilibrium and no justice without restraint.
HENRY KISSINGER

History Justice Peace Teaching
Americans have a tendency to believe that when there’s a problem there must be a solution.
HENRY KISSINGER

Believe Problem
Intellectuals analyze the operations of international systems; statesmen build them.
HENRY KISSINGER

Intellectual Politics
In the end, peace can be achieved only by hegemony or by balance of power.
HENRY KISSINGER

Achievement End Peace Power

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

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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