Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.
Henry A. Kissinger
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Henry A. Kissinger
Tell
Firsts
Book
First
Autobiography
Frank
Page
Pages
Mistake
More quotes by Henry A. Kissinger
I want to thank you for stopping the applause. It is impossible for me to look humble for any period of time.
Henry A. Kissinger
China is a country with a record of continuous self-government going back 4,000 years, the only society that has achieved this. One must start with the assumption that they must have learnt something about the requirements for survival, and it is not always to be assumed that we know it better than they do.
Henry A. Kissinger
While we should never give up our principles, we must also realize that we cannot maintain our principles unless we survive.
Henry A. Kissinger
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.
Henry A. Kissinger
In Asia, the nation state still is extremely vital, and of course, then in Africa, a whole new pattern is emerging because the states in Africa reflected the preferences of the colonial powers when they were established.
Henry A. Kissinger
Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.
Henry A. Kissinger
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
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
I believe it is a mistake to isolate arms control from other areas of policy.
Henry A. Kissinger
Historically when there is a rising power like China, it has usually led to confrontations between the rising power and the existing dominant powers. And when you have a shift of the center of gravity of world affairs from the Atlantic to the Pacific, then you have an additional element.
Henry A. Kissinger
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.
Henry A. Kissinger
In relations with many domestically weak countries, a radio transmitter can be a more effective form of pressure than a squadron B-52s.
Henry A. Kissinger
Before there was the Soviet Union that could inflame matters. Now you have states not as powerful as the Soviet Union, but states like Iraq, like Iran, and to some extent Syria, having made it possible for some of these groups to operate. So it is a very difficult situation.
Henry A. Kissinger
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.
Henry A. Kissinger
I was always convinced that decent people in the case of Vietnam, highly intelligent, decent people, got us involved because they had made, in part, a misjudgment about the nature of the communist system and the unity of the communist world and the degree to which the experience of Europe could be repeated in Vietnam.
Henry A. 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 A. Kissinger
Far too often the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown: whether Ukraine joins the East or the West. But if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side's outpost against the other - it should function as a bridge between them.
Henry A. Kissinger
You can't make war in the Middle East without Egypt and you can't make peace without Syria.
Henry A. Kissinger
The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.
Henry A. Kissinger
I believe in freedom of expression, and I believe that societies thrive when they permit freedom of expression.
Henry A. Kissinger