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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.
Henry A. Kissinger
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Henry A. Kissinger
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More quotes by Henry A. Kissinger
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
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
The American foreign policy trauma of the sixties and seventies was caused by applying valid principles to unsuitable conditions.
Henry A. Kissinger
People are generally amazed that I would take an interest in any form that would require me to stop talking for three hours.
Henry A. Kissinger
It is one of history's ironies that Communism, advertised as a classless society, tended to breed a privileged class of feudal proportions.
Henry A. Kissinger
Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
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 have always expressed respect for those people who make public declarations.
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
It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.
Henry A. Kissinger
With proper tactics, nuclear war need not be as destructive as it appears.
Henry A. Kissinger
Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls but for the consequences of their actions.
Henry A. Kissinger
Intellectuals are cynical and cynics have never built a cathedral.
Henry A. Kissinger
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
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
Oil is much too important a commodity to be left in the hands of the Arabs.
Henry A. Kissinger
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
For any student of history, change is the law of life. Any attempt to contain it guarantees an explosion down the road the more rigid the adherence to the status quo, the more violent the ultimate outcome will be.
Henry A. Kissinger
Withdrawal of US troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public: The more US troops come home, the more will be demanded.
Henry A. Kissinger
I believe it is a mistake to isolate arms control from other areas of policy.
Henry A. Kissinger