Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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.
Henry A. Kissinger
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Henry A. Kissinger
Without
Express
Take
Respect
People
Stand
Issues
Public
Rights
Confrontation
Human
Influential
Humans
Criticize
More quotes by 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
Henceforth the adequacy of any military establishment will be tested by its ability to preserve the peace.
Henry A. Kissinger
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that, if you bore people, they think it's their fault.
Henry A. Kissinger
Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power, and is often, in point of fact, useless.
Henry A. Kissinger
I don't read books, I write them.
Henry A. Kissinger
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
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
Diplomats operate through deadlock, which is the way by which two sides can test each other's determination. Even if they have egos for it few heads of government have the time to resolve stalemates, their meetings are too short and the demands of protocol too heavy.
Henry A. Kissinger
In his essay, ‘Perpetual Peace,’ the philosopher, Immanuel Kant, argued that perpetual peace would eventually come to the world in one of two ways, by human insight or by conflicts and catastrophes of a magnitude that left humanity no other choice. We are at such a juncture.
Henry A. Kissinger
The US must carry out some act somewhere in the world which shows its determination to continue to be a world power.
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
If peace is equated simply with the absence of war, it can become abject pacifism that turns the world over to the most ruthless.
Henry A. Kissinger
High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.
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
The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.
Henry A. Kissinger
University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
Henry A. Kissinger
Why should we flagellate ourselves for what the Cambodians did to each other?
Henry A. Kissinger
Don't be too ambitious. Do the most important thing you can think of doing every year and then your career will take care of itself.
Henry A. Kissinger
If I should ever be captured, I want no negotiation - and if I should request a negotiation from captivity they should consider that a sign of duress.
Henry A. Kissinger
Almost every peace process that has gone on between the Arab side and Israel, the United States has been somewhat isolated because most of the countries in the world, what they really want is to accept the Arab peace plan or so-called peace plan, which in its present form would lead to the destruction of Israel.
Henry A. Kissinger