The state is a fragile organization, and the statesman does not have the moral right to risk its survival on ethical restraint.
HENRY KISSINGERIt’s a pity both sides can’t lose (commenting on Iran-Iraq war, 1980 – 1988)
More Henry Kissinger Quotes
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Yet freedom cannot be secured or sustained without a framework of order to keep the peace.
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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.
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The goal of the tribute system was to foster deference, not to extract economic benefit or to dominate foreign societies militarily.
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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)?
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A country whose security depends on producing a genius in each generation sets itself a task no society has ever met.
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Don’t be too ambitious. Do the most important thing you can think of doing every year and then your career will take care of itself.
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Every victory is only the price of admission to a more difficult problem
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George Bernard Shaw: There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.
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Later I learned to improve my forecasting—if necessary by asking the visitor in advance what subjects he intended to raise with Nixon.
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A diamond is a chunk of coal that did well under pressure.
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Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies.
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America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests
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The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
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Intellectuals analyze the operations of international systems; statesmen build them.
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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