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Well, he keeps saying that, and as defense secretary, of course he has to think of a lot of potential enemies. I do not think it's a wise course to articulate this or to base our policy on it. And I do not see under modern circumstances what we would be fighting about.

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 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 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
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When I became security advisor, I became familiar with the so-called SIOP war plans, I called in Secretary McNamara and asked him what they were hiding from me, because I couldn't believe that the National policy would foresee such a level of destructiveness.
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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Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
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 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
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An Iranian moderate is one who has run out of ammunition.
Henry A. Kissinger
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The greatest need of the contemporary international system is an agreed concept of order.
Henry A. Kissinger
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World population needs to be decreased by 50%
Henry A. Kissinger
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The history of things that didn't happen has never been written.
Henry A. Kissinger
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Intellectuals are cynical and cynics have never built a cathedral.
Henry A. Kissinger
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I want to thank you for stopping the applause. It is impossible for me to look humble for any period of time.
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
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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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A little uncertainty is good for everyone.
Henry A. Kissinger
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The convictions that leaders have formed before reaching high office are the intellectual capital they will consume as long as they continue in office.
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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The important thing is to do the right thing. Then credibility will follow.
Henry A. Kissinger
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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.
Henry A. Kissinger