Henry A. Kissinger Quotes

I think that his [Obama's] task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period, when really a New World Order can be created.

Diplomats operate through deadlock, which is the way by which two sides can test each other's determination. Even if they have egos for it few heads of government have the time to resolve stalemates, their meetings are too short and the demands of protocol too heavy.

It is not often that nations learn from the past,even rarer that they draw the correct conclusions from it.

I also do not believe that the United States can let itself be driven into a political role by escalating terrorism, and therefore, the leaders of the Arab world and Arafat should do their utmost to put an end to this and then the United States should do its utmost to produce a political solution.

Jews were segregated from 1933 on. We could only play against other Jewish teams. This wasn't just social segregation; this was the beginning of the extermination of the Jews. That's why my family left Germany in 1938.

It is frankly a mistake of amateurs to believe you can gain the upper hand in a diplomatic negotiation.

A nation riven by factions, in which the minority has no hope of ever becoming a majority, or in which some group knows it is perpetually outcast, will seem oppressive to its members, whatever the legal pretensions.

Every American president, regardless of party, has said that America has an intense interest in a peaceful resolution. And I think it should be left at that.

The real distinction is between those who adapt their purposes to reality and those who seek to mold reality in the light of their purposes.

Well, he keeps saying that, and as defense secretary, of course he has to think of a lot of potential enemies. I do not think it's a wise course to articulate this or to base our policy on it. And I do not see under modern circumstances what we would be fighting about.

Today, America would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there were an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well-being granted to them by the World Government

What we in America call terrorists are really groups of people that reject the international system

The Chinese military budget today is officially listed as, I think, about $15 billion. But even if you double it, that's only a tenth of ours. So the possibility of China challenging the United States for the next ten years over the Pacific is next to zero. There could be a conflict between us and China over Taiwan, but I think that, too, will not occur with the proper policies on both sides.

There are only two reasons to sit in the back row of an airplane: Either you have diarrhea, or you're anxious to meet people who do.

The Gorbachev period is conceived as an abandonment of historic Russian positions. So this is the framework, in my view, in which Putin operates.

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

I think China will do nothing to obstruct it, and they probably will go along with it.

In the end, peace can be achieved only by hegemony or by balance of power.

The challenge is whether China as a rising country, the United States as the superpower, can develop a cooperative relationship in this period before nationalism becomes so dominant in China as a substitute for communism, and a kind of self-righteous isolationism in this country that substitutes China for the Soviet Union.

Behind the slogans lay an intellectual vacuum.

I don't have a brief for every single reaction of Israel, but I think it is important that the political negotiations occur free of the threat of terrorism.

You know, this is a very strange phenomenon. I keep reading that in American newspapers, and I keep reading extensive speculations. I meet with the Chinese leaders periodically, and while I don't say they've endorsed the missile shield, it has not been in the forefront of their discussions.

We must learn to distinguish morality from moralizing.

Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.

I grew up in Germany during the Nazi period, and I came to this country when I was 15. And then I had to work in a factory because we had no resources. And I went to night school. So, it was not a rational ambition for me to become a world statesman.

The American formal position has been that we oppose violence by governments against their people. That principle should not be abandoned.

Everybody who has dealt with China over an extended period of time has come to more or less the same conclusions. There are nuances of differences, but not fundamental differences. I think that President Bush was heading in this direction, and I have no doubt that he will again wind up in this position. But right now he has to be preoccupied with the atrocity committed in New York and Washington.

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

In crises the most daring course is often safest.

Realism in foreign policy means careful consideration of all aspects pertinent to the issue, before taking a decision. This is the only way you can move from where you are to someplace else.

Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." [...] But since the Freedom of Information Act, I'm afraid to say things like that.

The convictions that leaders have formed before reaching high office are the intellectual capital they will consume as long as they continue in office.

Almost every peace process that has gone on between the Arab side and Israel, the United States has been somewhat isolated because most of the countries in the world, what they really want is to accept the Arab peace plan or so-called peace plan, which in its present form would lead to the destruction of Israel.

To revolutionaries the significant reality is the world which they are fighting to bring about, not the world they are fighting to overcome.

The true conservative is not at home in social struggle. He will attempt to avoid unbridgeable schism, because he knows that a stable social structure thrives not on triumphs but on reconciliations.

I have always expressed respect for those people who make public declarations.

We attempted to try to solve every problem in the world, out of a sense of moral obligations, and attitudes, and our history. But no country can solve every problem without exhausting itself. Therefore, we have to establish priorities.

No, [the U.S.] has made it clear that we consider a peaceful resolution an essential aspect of American foreign policy. This I believe to be a situation understood by China, but again, it is important to not sound too truculent. Taking on a billion-plus Chinese is not an enterprise which one should enter lightly.

The essence of Richard Nixon is loneliness.

History knows no resting places and no plateaus

If you control the food, you control a nation. If you control the energy, you control a region. If you control the money, you control the world.

People are generally amazed that I would take an interest in any form that would require me to stop talking for three hours.

China has had a long and complex history and has managed to evolve its own culture for 4,000 years. It therefore not necessarily true that we know exactly what is best for the internal structure of China.

I would say the special experience of American wartime policy in the last 40 years, from Vietnam on, is that the war itself became controversial in the country and that the most important thing we need in the current situation is, whatever disagreements there may be on tactics, that the legitimacy of the war itself does not become a subject of controversy. We have to start with the assumption, obviously, that whatever administration is conducting a war wants to end it.

If peace is equated simply with the absence of war, it can become abject pacifism that turns the world over to the most ruthless.

Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

Well, the capacity of French intellectuals to understand a Texan way of thinking is finite.

I do not criticize people who take a public stand on human rights issues. I express my respect for them. But some people are more influential without a public confrontation.