Henry A. Kissinger Quotes

Statesmen think in terms of history and view society as an organism. Prophets are different since they believe absolute aims can be achieved in the foreseeable future. More people have been killed by crusaders than by statesmen.

I grew up as a discriminated minority in a dictatorship, so obviously the issue of human rights is a matter of concern for me.

Committees are consumers and sometimes sterilizers of ideas, rarely creators of them.

The China of the 1970s was a communist dictatorship. The China of the twenty-first century is a one-party state without a firm ideological foundation, more similar to Mexico under the PRI than Russia under Stalin. But the measurement of the political and the economic evolution has not yet been completed, and is one of the weak points of the system.

[The New World Order] cannot happen without U.S. participation, as we are the most significant single component. Yes, there will be a New World Order, and it will force the United States to change it's perceptions.

Statesman create; ordinary leaders consume. The ordinary leader is satisfied with ameliorating the environment, not transforming it; a statesman must be a visionary and an educator.

America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.

You should not think that you can shape history only by your will. This is also why I'm against the concept of intervention when you don't know its ultimate implications.

The art of good foreign policy is to understand and to take into consideration the values of a society, to realize them at the outer limit of the possible.

The Western concept of democracy is based on the idea that the loser of an election has the possibility next time round of being the winner. But in the case of an ethnically or religiously divided country, in which minorities don't live peacefully together, this necessary balance can't be properly guaranteed by democracy. When each ethnic group arms itself, it is not surprising that the army of a new state is viewed by part of the population as an ideological militia.

If we do what is necessary, all the odds are in our favor.

Baseball is the most intellectual game because most of the action goes on in your head.

In my life, I have almost always been on the side of active foreign policy. But you need to know with whom you are cooperating. You need reliable partners.

One of the hardest things for the president is to distinguish the routine issues that come through from the essential issues that affect the long term, and not to let himself get sucked into the battles of the bureaucracy for marginal issues, and to keep them focused and to keep his mind clear on what the fundamental things are that he has to accomplish.

Let me make my point about Vietnam. When the Nixon initiation came into office, there were 550,000 Americans in combat. And ending the war was not a question of turning off a television channel. And so, debating on how we got there and what judgments were made was not going to help us.

When I became security advisor, I became familiar with the so-called SIOP war plans, I called in Secretary McNamara and asked him what they were hiding from me, because I couldn't believe that the National policy would foresee such a level of destructiveness.

In relations with many domestically weak countries, a radio transmitter can be a more effective form of pressure than a squadron B-52s.

I wouldn't say it's a split. It's a difference of emphasis. It does exist between, I would say, the State Department and the Defense Department.

We have three things in common: Irish wives, the ability to speak for 17 minutes without a verb, and the fact that we both speak with an accent.

The issues are too important to be left for the voters.

I think a resumption of the Cold War would be a historic tragedy. If a conflict is avoidable, on a basis reflecting morality and security, one should try to avoid it.

A little uncertainty is good for everyone.

What China would do, I cannot predict. China has all but given up the claim to the use of force, except in the circumstance of Taiwan declaring its independence. That is a huge step forward over what the situation was many years ago.

I don't stand on protocol. Just call me your Excellency.

Iraq has to be made an international, and not just a national American problem.

I want to thank you for stopping the applause. It is impossible for me to look humble for any period of time.

You become a superpower by being strong but also by being wise and by being farsighted. But no state is strong or wise enough to create a world order alone.

For the Soul of France is masterful history, brilliantly researched, and hard to put down.

Accept everything about yourself - I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end - no apologies, no regrets.

More and more of the Taiwanese economy is connected with the mainland. There are more and more exchanges taking place. There's no reason to doubt that over a period of ten years or so, or maybe more, the conditions of life on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait will become more comparable, and the dialogue on the political level therefore easier.

The important thing is to do the right thing. Then credibility will follow.

To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal

I believe that without Watergate we would have had an extraordinary period of success with a strong Nixon and a still vital Brezhnev in power.

Our nation is uniquely endowed to play a creative and decisive role in the new order which is taking form around us.

The reason prophets are so rarely honored in their own country is that their role is to transcend the limits of their contemporaries' experience and imagination. They achieve recognition only when their vision has been turned into experience - in short, when it is too late to benefit from their foresight.

If you do not know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere

I don't think that that's a desirable option for us. Besides, it wouldn't work, because there are too many other countries that are willing to work economically with China. But I don't think the basic relationship depends on economics. It depends on a political understanding of what is required for peace in Asia.

In 10 years, there will be no more Israel.

I knew Deng Xiaoping when he came out of prison. He had, after all, been imprisoned for nearly ten years by Mao. I know what China looked like before he took over, and so in my own mind, I don't think of Deng Xiaoping as an oppressor. I think of somebody who, faced with that crisis, made a very painful and decision with which I cannot agree. But I also think of him as a great reformer.

John Paul II was one of the greatest men of the last century. Perhaps the greatest.

From a geo-strategic point of view, I consider Iran a bigger problem than the Islamic State. ISIS is a group of adventurers with a very aggressive ideology. But they have to conquer more and more territory before they can became a geo-strategic, permanent reality. I think a conflict with ISIS - important as it is - is more manageable than a confrontation with Iran.

We believe that peace is at hand.

Obama is like a chess player who is playing simultaneous chess and has opened his game with an unusual opening.

The British capitalize on their accent when they don't want you to know what they're saying. But if you wake them up at 4 A.M., they speak perfect English, the same as we do.

While we should never give up our principles, we must also realize that we cannot maintain our principles unless we survive.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been. The public does not fully understand the world into which it is going. Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision. Those leaders who do not are ultimately judged failures, even though they may be popular at the moment.

Does anyone have any questions for my answers?

Realism in foreign policy is made up of a clear set of values, since difficult foreign policy decisions are often decided with the narrowest of majorities. Without any sense of what is right and wrong, one would drown in a flood of difficult and pragmatic decisions.