1
Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There is too much fraternizing with the enemy.Henry Kissinger
2
Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.Henry Kissinger
3
Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.Henry Kissinger
4
Politicians are like dogs... Their life expectancy is too short for a commitment to be bearableHenry Kissinger
5
The bargaining position of the victor always diminishes with time. Whatever is not exacted during the shock of defeat becomes increasingly difficult to attain later.Henry Kissinger
6
In every era, humanity produces demonic individuals and seductive ideas of repression. The task of statesmanship is to prevent their rise to power and sustain an international order capable of deterring them if they do achieve it.Henry Kissinger
7
The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.Henry Kissinger
8
Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play GodHenry Kissinger
9
A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.Henry Kissinger
10
A turbulent history has taught Chinese leaders that not every problem has a solution and that too great an emphasis on total mastery over specific events could upset the harmony of the universe.Henry Kissinger
11
Americans have a tendency to believe that when there's a problem there must be a solution.Henry Kissinger
12
And history teaches this iron law of revolutions: the more extensive the eradication of existing authority, the more its successors must rely on naked power to establish themselves. For, in the end, legitimacy involves an acceptance of authority without compulsion; its absence turns every contest into a test of strength.Henry Kissinger
13
The acquisition of knowledge from books provides an experience different from the Internet. Reading is relatively time-consuming; to ease the process, style is important. Because it is not possible to read all books on a given subject, much less the totality of books, or to organize easily everything one has read, learning from books places a premium on conceptual thinking - the ability to recognize comparable data and events and project patterns into the future. And style propels the reader into a relationship with the author, or with the subject matter, by fusing substance and aesthetics. .Henry Kissinger
14
No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.Henry Kissinger
15
There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.Henry Kissinger
16
The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.Henry Kissinger
17
Now when I bore people at a party they think it's their fault.Henry Kissinger
18
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.Henry Kissinger
19
The history of things that didn't happen has never been written.Henry Kissinger
20
Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power and is often in point of fact useless. Just as a leader doesn't need intelligence a man in my job doesn't need too much of it either.Henry Kissinger
21
I do not stand on protocol. If you just call me Excellency it will be okay.Henry Kissinger
22
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 who he assumes to have perfect vision.Henry Kissinger
23
90% of the politicians give the other 10% a bad reputation.Henry Kissinger
24
Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.Henry Kissinger
25
The illegal we do immediately the unconstitutional takes a little longer.Henry Kissinger
26
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 Kissinger
27
The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.Henry Kissinger
28
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people they think it's their fault.Henry Kissinger
29
A conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if it does not lose.Henry Kissinger
30
I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.Henry Kissinger
31
The attitude of the West and of Russia towards a crisis like Ukraine is diametrically different. The West is trying to establish the legality of any established border. For Russia, Ukraine is part of the Russian patrimony.Henry Kissinger
32
The Vietnam War was a great tragedy for our country. And it is now far enough away so that one can study without using the slogans to see what's really happened.Henry Kissinger
33
America has fought five wars since 1945 and has gained its objectives in only one of them, the Gulf War.Henry Kissinger
34
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 Kissinger
35
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that, if you bore people, they think it's their fault.Henry Kissinger
36
Everybody has a hacking capability. And probably every intelligence service is hacking in the territory of other countries. But who exactly does what? That would be a very sensitive piece of information. But it's very difficult to communicate about it. Because nobody wants to admit the scope of what they're doing.Henry Kissinger
37
It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.Henry Kissinger
38
People are generally amazed that I would take an interest in any forum that would require me to stop talking for three hours.Henry Kissinger
39
Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.Henry Kissinger
40
Power is the great aphrodisiac.Henry Kissinger
41
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 Kissinger
42
The statesman's duty is to bridge the gap between his nation's experience and his vision.Henry Kissinger
43
Donald Trump is a phenomenon that foreign countries haven't seen. So it is a shocking experience to them that he came in to office.Henry Kissinger
44
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 Kissinger
45
The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.Henry Kissinger
46
Leadership is absolutely vital if there are comparable countries which can affect the security of the world you live in. Between Lincoln and Roosevelt's time, America was protected by huge oceans and, in practice, by the British navy. Today, it's different, and the obsession of the Obama administration has been for retrenchment.Henry Kissinger
47
It is, after all, the responsibility of the expert to operate the familiar and that of the leader to transcend it.Henry Kissinger
48
Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative.Henry Kissinger
49
Art is man's expression of his joy in labor.Henry Kissinger
50
University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.Henry Kissinger
51
Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.Henry Kissinger
52
I don't see the wisdom in modern politicians that I once saw in men like Dean Acheson, David Bruce, or George Marshall. In my day, the northeastern establishment dominated foreign policy formulation, but the composition and distribution of our population is very different today.Henry Kissinger
53
Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.Henry Kissinger
54
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 Kissinger