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A nation riven by factions, in which the minority has no hope of ever becoming a majority, or in which some group knows it is perpetually outcast, will seem oppressive to its members, whatever the legal pretensions.

Henry A. Kissinger

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Henry A. Kissinger
Nations
Legal
Pretensions
Whatever
Group
Oppressive
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Perpetually
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Factions
Ever
Groups
Outcast
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A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.
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There is no realism without an element of idealism.
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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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It is one of history's ironies that Communism, advertised as a classless society, tended to breed a privileged class of feudal proportions.
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The Israelis want security. The Arabs want dignity. And they consider the demands of each other as incompatible.
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A little uncertainty is good for everyone.
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You become a superpower by being strong but also by being wise and by being farsighted. But no state is strong or wise enough to create a world order alone.
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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.
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In a nuclear war, even if one side were to come out ahead by systems analytical standards, both sides would be so weakened, that it would - they would be in the position of Europe after the two World Wars.
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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.
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It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.
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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.
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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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The test of policy is how it ends, not how it begins. Foreign policy is the art of establishing priorities. Demonization is not a policy it is an alibi for the absence of one. The test is not absolute satisfaction but balanced dissatisfaction.
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The idea of abstract power only exists for academics, not in real life.
Henry A. Kissinger
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The essence of Richard Nixon is loneliness.
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I don't read books, I write them.
Henry A. Kissinger
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Democracy is too important to leave up to the votes of the people.
Henry A. Kissinger
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The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision.
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