Henry Kissinger Quotes

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

~ Henry Kissinger

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

~ Henry Kissinger

Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.

~ Henry Kissinger

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

~ Henry Kissinger

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

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

~ Henry Kissinger

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

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

~ Henry Kissinger

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

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

~ Henry Kissinger

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

~ Henry Kissinger

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

~ Henry Kissinger

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

~ Henry Kissinger

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

~ Henry Kissinger

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

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

~ Henry Kissinger

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

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

America has fought five wars since 1945 and has gained its objectives in only one of them, the Gulf War.

~ Henry Kissinger

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

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

~ Henry Kissinger

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that, if you bore people, they think it's their fault.

~ Henry Kissinger

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

It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.

~ Henry Kissinger

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

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

~ Henry Kissinger

Power is the great aphrodisiac.

~ Henry Kissinger

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

The statesman's duty is to bridge the gap between his nation's experience and his vision.

~ Henry Kissinger

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

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

~ Henry Kissinger

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

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

~ Henry Kissinger

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

~ Henry Kissinger

Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative.

~ Henry Kissinger

Art is man's expression of his joy in labor.

~ Henry Kissinger

University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.

~ Henry Kissinger

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

~ Henry Kissinger

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

Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.

~ Henry Kissinger