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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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Henry A. Kissinger
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More quotes by Henry A. Kissinger
Every success is usually an admission ticket to a new set of decisions.
Henry A. Kissinger
Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed.
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
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
University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
Henry A. Kissinger
Nixon had three goals: to win by the biggest electoral landslide in history to be remembered as a peacemaker and to be accepted by the 'Establishment' as an equal. He achieved all these objectives at the end of 1972 and the beginning of 1973. And he lost them all two months later-partly because he turned a dream into an obsession.
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
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
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
It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.
Henry A. Kissinger
Well, he keeps saying that, and as defense secretary, of course he has to think of a lot of potential enemies. I do not think it's a wise course to articulate this or to base our policy on it. And I do not see under modern circumstances what we would be fighting about.
Henry A. Kissinger
One thing I don't want around me is a military intellectual. I don't have to worry about you on that score.
Henry A. Kissinger
I believe in freedom of expression, and I believe that societies thrive when they permit freedom of expression.
Henry A. Kissinger
I know Hillary Clinton as a person. And as a personal friend, I would say yes, she'd be a good president. But she'd put me under a great conflict of interest if she were a candidate because I intend to support the Republicans.
Henry A. Kissinger
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
If eighty percent of your sales come from twenty percent of all of your items, just carry those twenty percent.
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
Democracy is too important to leave up to the votes of the people.
Henry A. Kissinger
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
The problem is Russia is a country that has lost 300 years of its history, in terms of most of what was part of the Russian Empire in Europe, towards Europe, since Peter the Great, has been the territory that is no longer under Russian rule.
Henry A. Kissinger