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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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Henry A. Kissinger
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In the end, peace can be achieved only by hegemony or by balance of power.
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John Paul II was one of the greatest men of the last century. Perhaps the greatest.
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I grew up in Germany during the Nazi period, and I came to this country when I was 15. And then I had to work in a factory because we had no resources. And I went to night school. So, it was not a rational ambition for me to become a world statesman.
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University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
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To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal
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I do not criticize people who take a public stand on human rights issues. I express my respect for them. But some people are more influential without a public confrontation.
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University politics make me long for the simplicity of the Middle East.
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For the Soul of France is masterful history, brilliantly researched, and hard to put down.
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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.
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Intellectuals are cynical and cynics have never built a cathedral.
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American politics are normally a result of pragmatic and not philosophical reasoning. No one in Washington has said we now prefer multilateralism.
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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.
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