The voices / 51 fragments

Henry Kissinger

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Archive entries

01Undated

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

Henry Kissinger / quote

02Undated

Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.

Henry Kissinger / quote

03Undated

Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.

Henry Kissinger / quote

04Undated

Politicians are like dogs... Their life expectancy is too short for a commitment to be bearable

Henry Kissinger / quote

05Undated

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 / quote

06Undated

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 / quote

07Undated

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

Henry Kissinger / quote

08Undated

Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God

Henry Kissinger / quote

09Undated

A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.

Henry Kissinger / quote

10Undated

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 / quote

11Undated

Americans have a tendency to believe that when there's a problem there must be a solution.

Henry Kissinger / quote

12Undated

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 / quote

13Undated

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 / quote

14Undated

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

Henry Kissinger / quote

15Undated

There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.

Henry Kissinger / quote

16Undated

The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.

Henry Kissinger / quote

17Undated

Now when I bore people at a party they think it's their fault.

Henry Kissinger / quote

18Undated

The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.

Henry Kissinger / quote

19Undated

The history of things that didn't happen has never been written.

Henry Kissinger / quote

20Undated

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 / quote

21Undated

I do not stand on protocol. If you just call me Excellency it will be okay.

Henry Kissinger / quote

22Undated

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 / quote

23Undated

90% of the politicians give the other 10% a bad reputation.

Henry Kissinger / quote

24Undated

Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Henry Kissinger / quote