Henry A. Kissinger Quotes - Page 6

Quotes about:

• 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

  Leadership, Running, People

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Captivity, Want, Duress

  U.S. News and World Report, October 7, 1985.

  8 Copy quote

• I do not know what will happen in China politically. I do know that it is impossible to maintain the communist system or probably even a strict one-party system when the economy becomes so pluralistic. Now, what form that takes and what institutions will evolve, I do not have a clear view about. I do not think the United States, as a general principle, ought to intervene in this.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Party, Thinking, Views

  Source: www.pbs.org

  7 Copy quote

• A return to the 1967 lines and the abandonment of the settlements near Jerusalem would be such a psychological trauma for Israel as to endanger its survival.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Israel, Survival, Would Be

  11 Copy quote

• To have striven so hard, to have molded a public personality out of so amorphous an identity, to have sustained that superhuman effort only to end with every weakness disclosed and every error compounding the downfall--that was a fate of biblical proportions. Evidently the Deity would not tolerate the presumption that all can be manipulated; an object lesson of the limits of human presumption was necessary.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Biblical, Fate, Errors

  8 Copy quote

• Countries do not assume burdens because it is fair, only because it is necessary.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Country, Assuming, Burden

  4 Copy quote

• We cannot give Russia veto over deployment of forces on NATO territory. But we have to understand their particular sensitivities, and, therefore, there should be a dialogue on these issues.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Issues, Russia, Giving

  Source: www.nytimes.com

  6 Copy quote

• Even a paranoid can have enemies.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Enemy, Paranoid, Security

  8 Copy quote

• 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. Each side should know that frequently uncertainty, compromise, and incoherence are the essence of policymaking. Yet each tends to ascribe to the other a consistency, foresight, and coherence that its own experience belies. Of course, over time, even two armed blind men can do enormous damage to each other, not to speak of the room.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Believe, Men, Essence

  "The White House Years". Book by Henry Kissinger, 1979.

  5 Copy quote

• It is, after all, the responsibility of the expert to operate the familiar and that of the leader to transcend it.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Leadership, Responsibility, Experts

  28 Copy quote

• Nothing is more urgent than a serious, dare I say compassionate, debate as to where we are going at home and abroad. Technicians cannot master revolutions; every great achievement was an idea before it became a reality. Cathedrals cannot be built by those who are paralyzed by doubt or consumed by cynicism. If a society loses the capacity for great conception, it can be administered but not governed.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Wisdom, Home, Reality

  14 Copy quote

• It is an act of insanity and national humiliation to have a law prohibiting the President from ordering assassination.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Law, Insanity, President

  Statement at a National Security Council meeting, 1975.

  9 Copy quote

• I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Mistake, Book, Pages

  7 Copy quote

• I believe that there is a whole set of issues in the world - environment, proliferation, energy, cyberspace - that can only be dealt with on a global basis. The traditional patterns of national rivalry and national competition are not suitable for those cases.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Believe, Issues, Competition

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

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

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Rights, Issues, Minorities

  Source: www.pbs.org

  7 Copy quote

• It is barely conceivable that there are people who like war.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  War, People

  April 23, 1971, telephone conversation with Allen Ginsberg. National Security Archive,

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Leader, Politics, Ordinary

  8 Copy quote

• We must learn to distinguish morality from moralizing.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Fear, Liberty, Morality

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Travel, Home, Perfect

  4 Copy quote

• In the hands of a determined Secretary, the Foreign Service can be a splendid instrument, staffed by knowledgeable, discreet, and energetic individuals. They do require constant vigilance lest the convictions that led them into a penurious career tempt them to preempt decision-making.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Hands, Careers, Decision

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Needs, Bleeding, Facts

  8 Copy quote

• This country cannot afford to tear itself apart on a partisan basis on issues so vital to our national security.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Country, Issues, Tears

  58 Copy quote

• Intellectuals are cynical and cynics have never built a cathedral.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Cynical, Cathedrals, Built

  "Sketchbook 1966-1971". Book by Max Frisch, p. 230, 1971.

  5 Copy quote

• If it's going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Politics, Politician, Media Training

  8 Copy quote

• One theory is that we will make war look so attractive that we undermine the deterrent. That's Never Never Land. What we have now would have been enough to deter Hitler. But we are talking in a different order of reality.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  War, Reality, Order

  4 Copy quote

Page 6 of 14

First

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin