Quote

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

Henry A. Kissinger

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Henry A. Kissinger
Enemy
America
Fatal
Friend
Dangerous

More quotes by Henry A. Kissinger

Image
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.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
In a diplomatic negotiation, you always meet the same the other side all the time. Even if you should succeed in outsmarting him or in pressuring him, it only sets up a cycle in which he will try to get even.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
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
Image
I have always expressed respect for those people who make public declarations.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
A little uncertainty is good for everyone.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
The defining issue is that the government in Taiwan was considered to be the government of all of China, and the authorities in Beijing were not recognized as a government of China. So Taiwan was the residuary for all of China.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
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
Image
China has had a long and complex history and has managed to evolve its own culture for 4,000 years. It therefore not necessarily true that we know exactly what is best for the internal structure of China.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
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
Image
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 A. Kissinger
Image
The test of policy is how it ends, not how it begins. Foreign policy is the art of establishing priorities. Demonization is not a policy it is an alibi for the absence of one. The test is not absolute satisfaction but balanced dissatisfaction.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
I believe in freedom of expression, and I believe that societies thrive when they permit freedom of expression.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
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
Image
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
Image
If you control the oil you control the country if you control food, you control the population.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
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
Image
University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
Certainly not a party of the workers and the peasants. In fact, Jiang Zemin in recent weeks has officially said that capitalists and the entrepreneurs should be enrolled in the Communist Party.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.
Henry A. Kissinger