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It is not often that nations learn from the past even rarer that they draw the correct conclusions from it. For the lessons of historical experience, as of personal experience, are contingent. They teach the consequences of certain actions, but they cannot force a recognition of comparable situations.

Henry A. Kissinger

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Henry A. Kissinger
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More quotes by Henry A. Kissinger

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It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.
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Peace depends ultimately not on political arrangements but on the conscience of mankind.
Henry A. Kissinger
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In my view, there's no doubt that the Soviets had infinitely greater trouble holding their structure together than we did.
Henry A. Kissinger
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A little uncertainty is good for everyone.
Henry A. Kissinger
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If you mean by military victory an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible.
Henry A. Kissinger
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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
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Becoming conscious is of course a sacrilege against nature it is as though you had robbed the unconscious of something. The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it's their fault.
Henry A. Kissinger
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Don't be too ambitious. Do the most important thing you can think of doing every year and then your career will take care of itself.
Henry A. Kissinger
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I think that his [Obama's] task will be to develop an overall strategy for America in this period, when really a New World Order can be created.
Henry A. Kissinger
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The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
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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In the end, peace can be achieved only by hegemony or by balance of power.
Henry A. Kissinger
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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
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U.S. policy toward the third world should be one of depopulation
Henry A. Kissinger
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The emergence of a unified Europe is one of the most revolutionary events of our time.
Henry A. Kissinger
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I don't read books, I write them.
Henry A. Kissinger
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History is not, of course, a cookbook offering pretested recipes. It teaches by analogy, not by maxims. It can illuminate the consequences of actions in comparable situations, yet each generation must discover for itself what situations are in fact comparable.
Henry A. Kissinger
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Clearly security without values is like a ship without a rudder. But values without security are like a rudder without a ship.
Henry A. Kissinger
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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
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Democracy is too important to leave up to the votes of the people.
Henry A. Kissinger