Henry Kissinger Quotes

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

Character History Human Nation Play
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
The issues are too important to be left for the voters.
HENRY KISSINGER

Important Issue Vote
A diamond is a chunk of coal that did well under pressure.
HENRY KISSINGER

Improvement Inspirational Success
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
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
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
Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.
HENRY KISSINGER

Difficult Problem Success
In the end, peace can be achieved only by hegemony or by balance of power.
HENRY KISSINGER

Achievement End Peace Power
Yet freedom cannot be secured or sustained without a framework of order to keep the peace.
HENRY KISSINGER

Freedom Peace Rule Secure
It has the added advantage of being true.
HENRY KISSINGER

True
Power without legitimacy tempts tests of strength; legitimacy without power tempts empty posturing.
HENRY KISSINGER

Empty Power Strength
Every victory is only the price of admission to a more difficult problem
HENRY KISSINGER

Difficult Price Problem Victory
A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.
HENRY KISSINGER

Alone Deserve Leadership
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 state is a fragile organization, and the statesman does not have the moral right to risk its survival on ethical restraint.
HENRY KISSINGER

Moral Right Risk Survive
Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies.
HENRY KISSINGER

Nation Rule Trust
For the balance of power is never static; its components are in constant flux.
HENRY KISSINGER

Philosophy Power Science
America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests
HENRY KISSINGER

Enemy Friendship
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
History is the memory of States.
HENRY KISSINGER

History Memories
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
Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There is too much fraternizing with the enemy.
HENRY KISSINGER

Enemy Win
When statesmen want to gain time, they offer to talk.
HENRY KISSINGER

Man Talk Time
Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.
HENRY KISSINGER

Appearance Bad Politics
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
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

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