Quote

The idea of abstract power only exists for academics, not in real life.

Henry A. Kissinger

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Henry A. Kissinger
Power
Ideas
Real
Life
Academics
Abstract
Exists
Idea

More quotes by Henry A. Kissinger

Image
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
Image
I go out with actresses because I'm not apt to marry one.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
The Vietnam War required us to emphasize the national interest rather than abstract principles. What President Nixon and I tried to do was unnatural. And that is why we didn't make it.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
One theory is that we will make war look so attractive that we undermine the deterrent. That's Never Never Land. What we have now would have been enough to deter Hitler. But we are talking in a different order of reality.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
Before there was the Soviet Union that could inflame matters. Now you have states not as powerful as the Soviet Union, but states like Iraq, like Iran, and to some extent Syria, having made it possible for some of these groups to operate. So it is a very difficult situation.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
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
Image
90% of politicians give the other 10% a bad name.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
A return to the 1967 lines and the abandonment of the settlements near Jerusalem would be such a psychological trauma for Israel as to endanger its survival.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
For the Soul of France is masterful history, brilliantly researched, and hard to put down.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
Democracy is too important to leave up to the votes of the people.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
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
Image
I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
If we do what is necessary, all the odds are in our favor.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
Our nation is uniquely endowed to play a creative and decisive role in the new order which is taking form around us.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
Power is the great aphrodisiac.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
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
Image
I believe in freedom of expression, and I believe that societies thrive when they permit freedom of expression.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
The history of things that didn't happen has never been written.
Henry A. Kissinger
Image
The British capitalize on their accent when they don't want you to know what they're saying. But if you wake them up at 4 A.M., they speak perfect English, the same as we do.
Henry A. Kissinger