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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

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Henry A. Kissinger
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More quotes by Henry A. Kissinger

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There is no realism without an element of idealism.
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What we in America call terrorists are really groups of people that reject the international system
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Competing pressures tempt one to believe that an issue deferred is a problem avoided more often it is a crisis invited.
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An Iranian moderate is one who has run out of ammunition.
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He [Deng Xiaoping] said that he did not understand why we failed to grasp that the alternative was not democracy, but total chaos and risking all the reforms that had been achieved.
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The history of things that didn't happen has never been written.
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Realism in foreign policy means careful consideration of all aspects pertinent to the issue, before taking a decision. This is the only way you can move from where you are to someplace else.
Henry A. Kissinger
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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
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Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed.
Henry A. Kissinger
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Accept everything about yourself - I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end - no apologies, no regrets.
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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Whenever a new president comes in, people that are used to the previous president wonder if he has the same capacity.
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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The first reactions are often instinctive. So one of the first things we said was that the Chinese had no right to inspect the plane, and that we had a sovereign right to. I don't know what the legal position is, but it was surely psychologically absolutely the unwise thing to do.
Henry A. Kissinger
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If you control the oil you control the country if you control food, you control the population.
Henry A. Kissinger
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I go out with actresses because I'm not apt to marry one.
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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Baseball is the most intellectual game because most of the action goes on in your head.
Henry A. Kissinger
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History knows no resting places and no plateaus
Henry A. Kissinger
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We have to be careful in negotiating with Iran that we don't create the impression among the Arab states and the Sunni states that we are working on a condominium between Iran and the United States, because that will panic them and drive them into making their own arrangement.
Henry A. Kissinger