Henry Kissinger Quotes

Henry Kissinger

Profession : Statesman

Birth : May 27, 1923

Even a paranoid can have enemies.

Henry Kissinger

The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.

Henry Kissinger

University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.

Henry Kissinger

America has fought five wars since 1945 and has gained its objectives in only one of them, the Gulf War.

Henry Kissinger

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

Henry Kissinger

The security of Israel is a moral imperative for all free peoples.

Henry Kissinger

While we should never give up our principles, we must also realize that we cannot maintain our principles unless we survive.

Henry Kissinger

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 Kissinger

If it's going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

Henry Kissinger

To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.

Henry Kissinger

For other nations, utopia is a blessed past never to be recovered; for Americans it is just beyond the horizon.

Henry Kissinger

Everybody has a hacking capability. And probably every intelligence service is hacking in the territory of other countries. But who exactly does what? That would be a very sensitive piece of information. But it's very difficult to communicate about it. Because nobody wants to admit the scope of what they're doing.

Henry Kissinger

Most foreign policies that history has marked highly, in whatever country, have been originated by leaders who were opposed by experts.

Henry 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 Kissinger

Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.

Henry 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 Kissinger

The essence of Richard Nixon is loneliness.

Henry Kissinger

The Vietnam War was a great tragedy for our country. And it is now far enough away so that one can study without using the slogans to see what's really happened.

Henry Kissinger

If eighty percent of your sales come from twenty percent of all of your items, just carry those twenty percent.

Henry Kissinger

No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there's too much fraternizing with the enemy.

Henry Kissinger