Henry Kissinger Quotes

When statesmen want to gain time, they offer to talk.

Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.

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)?

What distinguishes Sun Tzu from Western writers on strategy is the emphasis on the psychological and political elements over the purely military.

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

A Harvard study has shown that in fifteen cases in history where a rising and an established power interacted, ten ended in war.

Order always requires a subtle balance of restraint, force, and legitimacy.

A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security

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?

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.