Henry A. Kissinger Quotes

The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.

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.

The security of Israel is a moral imperative for all free peoples.

I don't read books, I write them.

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.

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.

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

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.

The emergence of a unified Europe is one of the most revolutionary events of our time.

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

Even a paranoid can have enemies.

A bluff taken seriously is more useful than a serious threat interpreted as a bluff.

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.

Any fact that needs to be disclosed should be put out now or as quickly as possible, because otherwise the bleeding will not end.

A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security.

We cannot always assure the future of our friends; we have a better chance of assuring our future if we remember who our friends are.

In my particular case foreign policy happens to be my hobby, my consuming interest. I had spent decades studying it.

Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered.

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

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.

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

An expert is someone who articulates the needs of those in power.

U.S. policy toward the third world should be one of depopulation

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

If eighty percent of your sales come from twenty percent of all of your items, just carry those twenty percent.

Whatever must happen ultimately should happen immediately.

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.

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

Where position is felt to be a birthright, generosity is possible (though not guaranteed); flexibility is not inhibited by a commitment to perpetual success.

We must learn to distinguish morality from moralizing.

Most foreign policies that history has marked highly, in whatever country, have been originated by leaders who were opposed by experts.

The essence of Richard Nixon is loneliness.

Even paranoid people have enemies.

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

[Nixon] wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn't want to hear anything about it. It's an order, to be done. Anything that flies on anything that moves.

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

We believe that peace is at hand.

The American temptation is to believe that foreign policy is a subdivision of psychiatry.

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.

Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power, and is often, in point of fact, useless.

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

If you control the oil you control the country; if you control food, you control the population.

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

Peace depends ultimately not on political arrangements but on the conscience of mankind.

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

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.

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.

The American foreign policy trauma of the sixties and seventies was caused by applying valid principles to unsuitable conditions.

At any rate, mutually assured destruction was never our policy.

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