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The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.

Henry Kissinger

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
Poor old Germany. Too big for Europe, too small for the world
HENRY KISSINGER

Big World
For nations, history plays the role that character confers on human beings.
HENRY KISSINGER

Character History Human Nation Play
Behind the slogans lay an intellectual vacuum.
HENRY KISSINGER

Intellectual Politics
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
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
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it’s their fault.
HENRY KISSINGER

Funny Mistake People Thinking Yourself
Power without legitimacy tempts tests of strength; legitimacy without power tempts empty posturing.
HENRY KISSINGER

Empty Power Strength
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
A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security
HENRY KISSINGER

Moral Perfection Policy Security
Americans hold that every problem has a solution; Chinese think that each solution is an admission ticket to a new set of problems.
HENRY KISSINGER

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

Force Language Understand
Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.
HENRY KISSINGER

Appearance Bad Politics
Empires have no interest in operating within an international system; they aspire to be the international system.
HENRY KISSINGER

Goal Nation Reality
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 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

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.

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The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.

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