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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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Henry A. Kissinger
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More quotes by Henry A. Kissinger

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The members of the Islamic Staye have cut the throat of an American on television. This is an insult to the United States, which requires that we demonstrate that this is not an act that is free. I would strongly favor a strong attack on ISIS for a period that is related to the murder of the American.
Henry A. Kissinger
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Donald Trump is a phenomenon that foreign countries haven't seen.
Henry A. Kissinger
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No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.
Henry A. Kissinger
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You become a superpower by being strong but also by being wise and by being farsighted. But no state is strong or wise enough to create a world order alone.
Henry A. Kissinger
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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
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The art of good foreign policy is to understand and to take into consideration the values of a society, to realize them at the outer limit of the possible.
Henry A. Kissinger
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Any international system must have two key elements for it to work. One, it has to have a certain equilibrium of power that makes overthrowing the system difficult and costly. Secondly, it has to have a sense of legitimacy.
Henry A. Kissinger
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I can think of no faster way to unite the American people behind George W. Bush than a terrorist attack on an American target overseas. And I believe George W. Bush will quickly unite the American people through his foreign policy.
Henry A. Kissinger
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90% of politicians give the other 10% a bad name.
Henry A. Kissinger
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A little uncertainty is good for everyone.
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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The essence of Richard Nixon is loneliness.
Henry A. Kissinger
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A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.
Henry A. Kissinger
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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
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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 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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I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.
Henry A. Kissinger
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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
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It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.
Henry A. Kissinger
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Administration has managed the extraordinary feat of having, at one and the same time, the worst relations with our allies, the worst relations with our adversaries, and the most serious upheavals in the developing world since the end of the Second World War.
Henry A. Kissinger