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

Henry A. Kissinger

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Henry A. Kissinger
Fatal
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More quotes by Henry A. Kissinger

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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
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American politics are normally a result of pragmatic and not philosophical reasoning. No one in Washington has said we now prefer multilateralism.
Henry A. Kissinger
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Iraq has to be made an international, and not just a national American problem.
Henry A. Kissinger
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Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed. History is a tale of efforts that failed, or aspirations that weren’t realized. So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy.
Henry A. Kissinger
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The essence of Richard Nixon is loneliness.
Henry A. Kissinger
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He [Deng Xiaoping] said that he did not understand why we failed to grasp that the alternative was not democracy, but total chaos and risking all the reforms that had been achieved.
Henry A. Kissinger
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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.
Henry A. Kissinger
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The American formal position has been that we oppose violence by governments against their people. That principle should not be abandoned.
Henry A. Kissinger
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I would have said, before the World Trade Center events, that he would try to get a normal relationship with China - making clear to China what the limits are of what America can accept, but also showing understanding for some of Chinese necessities. I thought he was moving towards the position that I have more or less advocated.
Henry A. Kissinger
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I also do not believe that the United States can let itself be driven into a political role by escalating terrorism, and therefore, the leaders of the Arab world and Arafat should do their utmost to put an end to this and then the United States should do its utmost to produce a political solution.
Henry A. Kissinger
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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.
Henry A. Kissinger
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University politics make me long for the simplicity of the Middle East.
Henry A. Kissinger
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An Iranian moderate is one who has run out of ammunition.
Henry A. Kissinger
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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.
Henry A. Kissinger
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A bluff taken seriously is more useful than a serious threat interpreted as a bluff.
Henry A. Kissinger
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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.
Henry A. Kissinger
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University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
Henry A. Kissinger
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Left to its own devices, the State Department machinery tends toward inertia rather than creativity it is always on the verge of turning itself into an enormous cable machine.
Henry A. Kissinger
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There is no realism without an element of idealism.
Henry A. Kissinger
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For the Soul of France is masterful history, brilliantly researched, and hard to put down.
Henry A. Kissinger