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Home
Authors
Henry A. Kissinger
Statesman
About the author
If you don't know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Will
#Road
If it's going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
It is, after all, the responsibility of the expert to operate the familiar and that of the leader to transcend it.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Responsibility
#Leader
If I should ever be captured, I want no negotiation - and if I should request a negotiation from captivity they should consider that a sign of duress.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Want
#Negotiation
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that, if you bore people, they think it's their fault.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#People
#Celebrity
#Being
#Fault
I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#People
#Country
I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Being
#First
#Mistake
It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#End
#Tragedy
#Nature
#Nixon
For other nations, utopia is a blessed past never to be recovered; for Americans it is just beyond the horizon.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Past
#Nations
#Americans
#Utopia
No foreign policy - no matter how ingenious - has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Chance
#Success
#Policy
#Foreign policy
Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Success
Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Art
#Power
Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#God
#People
#Eye
#Play
#Leaders
#Destiny
High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Decisions
#Decision
#Perceptions
#Office
Power is the great aphrodisiac.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Power
The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Feeling
#Vision
#Men
#Blind
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
The essence of Richard Nixon is loneliness.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Loneliness
#Nixon
The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Army
The American temptation is to believe that foreign policy is a subdivision of psychiatry.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Policy
#American
#Temptation
#Foreign policy
#Psychiatry
The American foreign policy trauma of the sixties and seventies was caused by applying valid principles to unsuitable conditions.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Policy
#American
#Principles
#Foreign policy
Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Politicians
#Reputation
The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Office
Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Public
#Leaders
#Actions
#Opinion
#Consequences
#Running
#Public opinion
People are generally amazed that I would take an interest in any form that would require me to stop talking for three hours.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#People
#Interest
#Talking
No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there's too much fraternizing with the enemy.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Will
#Enemy
#Battle
#Sexes
Art is man's expression of his joy in labor.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Art
#Man
#Labor
#Expression
#Joy
No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Time
#Country
#Act
Most foreign policies that history has marked highly, in whatever country, have been originated by leaders who were opposed by experts.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Country
#Leaders
#History
#Experts
Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Thought
#Virtue
#Moderation
Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Vision
#Leaders
#Alchemy
The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Mind
#Absence
The Vietnam War required us to emphasize the national interest rather than abstract principles. What President Nixon and I tried to do was unnatural. And that is why we didn't make it.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#War
#President
#Interest
#Vietnam
#Principles
#Nixon
While we should never give up our principles, we must also realize that we cannot maintain our principles unless we survive.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Principles
Whatever must happen ultimately should happen immediately.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
We cannot always assure the future of our friends; we have a better chance of assuring our future if we remember who our friends are.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Chance
#Friends
#Future
We are all the President's men.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#President
#Men
University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Politics
#University
Any fact that needs to be disclosed should be put out now or as quickly as possible, because otherwise the bleeding will not end.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Now
#Will
#End
#Needs
#Fact
There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Crisis
You can't make war in the Middle East without Egypt and you can't make peace without Syria.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#War
#Peace
The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#People
#Leader
The statesman's duty is to bridge the gap between his nation's experience and his vision.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Vision
#Experience
#Nation
#Duty
The security of Israel is a moral imperative for all free peoples.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Security
#Israel
Accept everything about yourself - I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end - no apologies, no regrets.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#End
#Beginning
#Apologies
A leader who confines his role to his people's experience dooms himself to stagnation; a leader who outstrips his people's experience runs the risk of not being understood.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#People
#Being
#Experience
#Risk
#Leader
A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Name
#Leader
To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Nothing
Even a paranoid can have enemies.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Enemies
If eighty percent of your sales come from twenty percent of all of your items, just carry those twenty percent.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman
#Sales
In crises the most daring course is often safest.
Henry A. Kissinger,
Statesman