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Henry Kissinger

84 quotes

• “Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed... History is a tale of efforts that failed, of aspirations that weren’t realized.... So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2004 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Cited in "Identifying the Wild Beast and Its Mark", in The Watchtower (1 March 2004)

• “If Tehran insists on combining the Persian imperial tradition with contemporary Islamic fervor, then a collision with America — and, indeed, with its negotiating partners of the Six — is unavoidable. Iran simply cannot be permitted to fulfill a dream of imperial rule in a region of such importance to the rest of the world.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Next Steps With Iran" in The Washington Post (31 July 2006), p. A15

• “If you mean by "military victory" an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Commenting on the Iraq War in a BBC interview of 19 November 2006, as quoted in "Kissinger: Iraq military win impossible" by Tariq Panja, Associated Press, at Yahoo! News (20 November 2006)

• “The great contribution of President Ford was that he managed to strike a balance between the American temptation toward perfectionism and the absolute, and the temptation to abandon everything because one cannot have the perfect and the absolute. He brought about an approach that I believe is essential to the conduct of a continuing foreign policy that works toward the maximum one can achieve but does not go beyond what the American people can sustain or what the international community can comprehend.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: He Moved With Calm" in Newsweek (7 January 2007)

• “American exceptionalism is missionary. It holds that the United States has an obligation to spread its values to every part of the world. China's exceptionalism is cultural. China does not proselytize; it does not claim that its contemporary institutions are relevant outside China. But it is the heir of the Middle Kingdom tradition, which formally graded all other states as various levels of tributaries based on their approximation to Chinese cultural and political forms; in other words, a kind of cultural universality.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2011 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: On China (2011)

• “Facts are rarely self-explanatory; their significance, analysis, and interpretation—at least in the foreign policy world—depend on context and relevance.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History (2014)

• “Rarely has a diplomatic document so missed its objective as the Treaty of Versailles. Too punitive for conciliation, too lenient to keep Germany from recovering, the Treaty of Versailles condemned the exhausted democracies to constant vigilance against an irreconcilable and revanchist Germany as well as a revolutionary Soviet Union.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History (2014)

• “In recent decades, Europe has retreated to the conduct of soft power. But besieged as it is on almost all frontiers by upheavals and migration, Europe, including Britain, can avoid turning into a victim of circumstance only by assuming a more active role.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Out of the Brexit Turmoil: Opportunity", Wall Street Journal, June 28, 2016.

• “Here, according to the mythology of the liberals, was a peaceful little country that Nixon attacked. The fact that there were four North Vietnamese divisions within 30 miles of Saigon coming across the border killing Americans—killing 500 a week starting within two weeks of Nixon’s inauguration—was ignored in the debate on Cambodia by protesters emphasizing the technical neutrality of Cambodia and ignoring that its ruler had invited our response.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: On bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam war. From an interview with the Atlantic magazine The Lessons of Henry Kissinger (10 November 2016), The Atlantic

• “The world’s democracies need to defend and sustain their Enlightenment values. A global retreat from balancing power with legitimacy will cause the social contract to disintegrate both domestically and internationally.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Coronavirus Pandemic Will Forever Alter the World Order, by Henry A. Kissinger, The Wall Street Journal, April 3, 2020

• “George left us at a moment when our national arguments are too often vindicated by passion rather than reason, by the debasement of the adversary rather than the uplifting of purposes. He also believed that if you were blessed with great gifts, you had a responsibility to apply yourself, and if you cared about your country, you had a duty to defend and improve it. He was skilled in presenting his convictions, but above all practiced the art of making controversy superfluous by encouraging mutual respect. Trust, George used to say, is the coin of the realm.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: George Shultz Had a Wise and Discerning Heart, by Henry A. Kissinger, The Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2021

• “If Putin uses the atomic bomb, Russia will be destroyed.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Henry Kissinger’s warning: “If Putin uses the atomic bomb, Russia will be destroyed”, New York (USA), October 1, 2022

• “It was a grave mistake to let in so many people of totally different culture and religion and concepts, because it creates a pressure group inside each country that does that.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2023 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Interview with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner for Germany's Welt TV, quoted in 'Henry Kissinger on Hamas attacks fallout: Germany let in too many foreigners', Politico (11 October 2023)

• “FBI: FBI terrorism tip line.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It is a mistake to assume that diplomacy can always settle international disputes if there is "good faith" and "willingness to come to an agreement". For in a revolutionary international order, each power will seem to its opponents to lack precisely these qualities. [...] In the absence of an agreement on what constitutes a reasonable demand, diplomatic conferences are occupied with sterile repetitions of basic positions and accusations of bad faith, or allegations of "unreasonableness" and "subversion". They become elaborate stage plays which attempt to attach as yet uncommitted powers to one of the opposing systems.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 1812 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812-22 (1957), p. 2

• “[T]hat it is unable to relate man to the forces outside himself whose makings he sees but whose motives he can grasp only by analogy. Conservatives have always insisted that the balance between these two sides aspects of human conduct is derived from a sense of reverence, a recognition of forces transcending man and WHICH IS THE REVERSE SIDE OF A RECOGNITION of the limitations of the individual apprehension of reality. The great rebels have denied this and insisted on finding in their own demoniac nature a sufficient motive for commitment. To the conservative the bond of society is a myth which reconciles the point of view which treats man as a means and his experience of himself by an analogy superior to analytical truth.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Thus, the more Bismarck preached his doctrine the more humanly remote he grew; the more rigorous he was in applying his lessons the more incomprehensible he became to his contemporaries. Nor was it strange that the conservatives gradually came to see in him the voice of the devil. For the devil is a fallen angel using the categories of piety to destroy it. And however brilliant Bismarck’s analysis, societies are incapable of the courage of cynicism. The insistence on men as atoms, on societies as forces has always led to a tour de force evading ERODING all self-restraint. Because societies operate by approximations and because they are incapable of fine distinctions, a doctrine of power as a means may end up by making power an end. And for this reason, although Bismarck had the better of the intellectual argument, it may well be that the conservatives embodied the greater social truth.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The Metternich system had been inspired by the eighteenth century notion of the universe as a great clockwork: Its parts were intricately intermeshed, and a disturbance of one upset the equilibrium of the others. Bismarck represented a new age. Equilibrium was seen not as harmony and mechanical balance, but as a statistical balance of forces in flux. Its appropriate philosophy was Darwin's concept of the survival of the fittest. Bismarck marked the change from the rationalist to the empiricist conception of politics.... Bismarck declared the relativity of all beliefs; he translated them into forces to be evaluated in terms of the power they could generate.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I think that any attempt at domination in a nuclear age is going to involve risks that are catastrophic and would not be tolerated. If we remain strong enough to prevent the imposition of Communist hegemony, then I believe that transformations of the Communist societies are inevitable. I believe that the imposition of the kind of state control that communism demands is totally incompatible with the requirements of human organization at this moment. The pressure of this realization on Communist systems is going to bring about a transformation apart from any conscious policy the United States pursues, so long as there is not a constant foreign danger that can be invoked to impose regimentation. What inherent reason is there that keeps the Communist societies in Eastern Europe from achieving the standard of living of those of Western Europe? The resources are about the same, the industrial organization is there. I think the reason is inherent in the type of society that has been created, and that I believe must inevitably change.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 1974 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: As quoted in an interview with the New York Times (13 October 1974)

• “Ever since the secret trip to China, my own relationship with Nixon had grown complicated. Until then I had been an essentially anonymous White House assistant. But now his associates were unhappy, and not without reason, that some journalists were giving me perhaps excessive credit for the more appealing aspects of our foreign policy while blaming Nixon for the unpopular moves. These tendencies were given impetus by an interview I granted to the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, without doubt the single most disastrous conversation I ever had with any member of the press. I saw her briefly on Nov. 2 and 4, 1972, in my office. I did so largely out of vanity. She had interviewed leading personalities all over the world. Fame was sufficiently novel for me to be flattered by the company I would be keeping. I had not bothered to read her writings; her evisceration of other victims was thus unknown to me.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: As quoted in "Special Section: Chagrined Cowboy" in Time magazine (8 October 1979)

• “Richard Milhous Nixon had inherited near-civil war conditions. Deeply suspicious of the Establishment, and in return mistrusted by many of its representatives, he nevertheless held fast to the conviction that the world's leading democracy could neither abdicate its responsibilities nor resign from its destiny. Few presidents have been as complex as Nixon: shy, yet determined; insecure, yet resolute; distrustful of intellectuals, yet privately deeply reflective; occasionally impetuous in his pronouncements, yet patient and farsighted in his strategic design, Nixon found himself in the position of having to guide America through the transition from dominance to leadership.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Diplomacy (1994)

• “Since the time America entered the arena of world politics in 1917, it has been so preponderant in strength and so convinced of the rightness of its ideals that this century's major international agreements have been embodiments of American values — from the League of Nations and the Kellogg-Briand Pact to the United Nations Charter and the Helsinki Final Act. The collapse of Soviet communism marked the intellectual vindication of American ideals and, ironically, brought America face to face with the kind of world it had been seeking to escape throughout its history. In the emerging international order, nationalism has gained a new lease on life. Nations have pursued self-interest more frequently than high-minded principle, and have competed more than they have cooperated. There is little evidence to suggest that this age-old mode of behavior has changed, or that it is likely to change in the decades ahead.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 1994 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Diplomacy (1994)

• “In my dual role of National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, my constant nightmare as Watergate accelerated was that, sooner or later, some foreign adversary might be tempted to test what remained of Nixon's authority and discover that the emperor had no clothes. Probably the greatest service rendered by the Nixon Administration in those strange and turbulent final months was to have prevented any such overt challenge. For even as it approached dissolution, the Nixon Administration managed to navigate the Arab-Israeli War of 1973, diminish the Soviet position in the Middle East by sponsoring two disengagement agreements, and conduct successfully a complicated triangular diplomacy with Moscow and Beijing.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Years of Renewal (1999)

• “As the impeachment proceedings gathered momentum, Nixon's personal conduct began to mirror his political decline. He kept fully abreast of the various foreign policy issues and at no point failed to make the key decisions. But, as time went on, Watergate absorbed more and more of Nixon's intellectual and emotional capital. As day-to-day business became trivialized by the increasingly apparent inevitability of his downfall, I felt enormous sympathy for this tormented man whose suffering was compounded by his knowledge that his tragedy was largely self-inflicted. Yet by early July 1974, I, like the other few survivors of Nixon's entourage, was so drained by the emotional roller coaster that I was half hoping for some merciful end to it all.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Years of Renewal (1999)

• “The Nixon Administration had systematically sought to change the context of the Cold War. This was not because we had become blind to Soviet ideology; rather we had concluded that the Soviets' ideological reach was collapsing. In two generations of Communist history, no Communist Party had ever won a free election. The only allies of the Soviet Union were in Eastern Europe, and they were being held in line by what amounted to Soviet military occupation. Once our opening to China was completed, the Soviet Union faced a coalition of all the industrial nations in the world in tacit alliance with the most populous nation. Sooner or later this equation would work in favor of the democracies, provided they could contain Soviet adventures by deterrence and give the Soviets a chance to reduce confrontation by opportunities for cooperation.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Years of Renewal (1999)

• “Nixon feared for our alliances if America abdicated in Indochina; he was concerned about the impact on Soviet restraint if the United States simply abandoned what four administrations had affirmed, and he believed that a demonstration of American weakness in Asia would destroy the opening to China based in part on America's role in thwarting Soviet moves toward hegemony in Asia. But as he entered office, he found that by the end of the Johnson administration, the goal of victory had been abandoned and a commitment had been made to end the bombing of North Vietnam and to seek a negotiated compromise solution. These objectives had been affirmed by both candidates in the presidential campaign. No significant American political or intellectual leader opposed them. When a negotiated solution proved unattainable, Nixon proceeded unilaterally to implement his concept of an honorable withdrawal.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Ending the Vietnam War: A History of America's Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War (2003)

• “I was intellectually convinced that Hanoi would settle only if deprived of all hope of victory by a determined military strategy. But I was emotionally close to many of the more moderate of the protesters who had been my contemporaries at university; therefore I was also the principal advocate in the administration for negotiations for a political solution to give the people of Indochina a genuine opportunity to choose this future. It turned out to be a rough ride, rougher by far than I imagined when I started on the task. Since then, the categories of our national debate on Vietnam have remained largely unchanged, compounded with the passage of time by an amnesia that suppresses events but remembers encrusted hatreds. A balanced judgment on Vietnam continues to elude us - and therefore the ability to draw lessons from a national tragedy which America inflicted on itself.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Ending the Vietnam War: A History of America's Involvement in and Extrication from the Vietnam War (2003)

• “The issue before us is whether the 21st century belongs to China. And I would say that China will be preoccupied with enormous problems internally, domestically with its immediate environment, and that I have enormous difficulty imagining it will be dominated by China, and indeed, as I will conclude, I believe that the concept that some country will dominate the world, is in itself a misunderstanding of the world in which we now live...In the geopolitical situation, China historically has been surrounded by a group of smaller countries, which themselves were not individually able to threaten China, but which united, could cause a threat to China, and therefore historically, Chinese foreign policy can be described as "barbarian management". So China had never had to deal in a world of countries of approximately equal strength, and so to adjust to such a world, is in itself a profound challenge to China, which now has 14 countries on its borders, some of which are small, but can project their nationality into China, some of which are large, and historically significant, so that any attempt by Chinese to dominate the world, would evoke a counter-reaction that would be disastrous for the peace of the world.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) said by 2023 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Far too often the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown: whether Ukraine joins the East or the West. But if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side’s outpost against the other — it should function as a bridge between them. Russia must accept that to try to force Ukraine into a satellite status, and thereby move Russia’s borders again, would doom Moscow to repeat its history of self-fulfilling cycles of reciprocal pressures with Europe and the United States. The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2014 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: To settle the Ukraine crisis, start at the end", Washington Post, March 5, 2014.

• “For 400 years, world history was made by Europeans. Many of the great ideas by which we live — constitutional government, freedom of the individual, the ideas of the Enlightenment — originated in Europe and were spread by Europe around the world. Now this region, which was dynamic and built the world, has become too preoccupied with itself. It confines itself basically to the exercise of soft power. At present, no European government has the capacity to ask its people for sacrifices on behalf of foreign policy. Unless Europe can recover some of its historic dynamism, there will be a big hole in the world system as it has until now manifested itself.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: As quoted in "World Chaos and World Order: Conversations With Henry Kissinger", The Atlantic, November 10, 2016

• “Few countries in history have started more wars or caused more turmoil than Russia in its eternal quest for security and status. It is also true, however, that at critical junctures Russia has saved the world’s equilibrium from forces that sought to overwhelm it: from the Mongols in the 16th century, from Sweden in the 18th century, from Napoleon in the 19th century, and from Hitler in the 20th century. In the contemporary period, Russia will be important in overcoming radical Islam, partly because it is home to some 20 million Muslims, particularly in the Caucasus and along Russia’s southern border. Russia will also be a factor in the equilibrium of Asia.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: As quoted in "World Chaos and World Order: Conversations With Henry Kissinger", The Atlantic, November 10, 2016

• “Both countries [the United States and China] consider themselves exceptional. The United States believes that our exceptionalism entitles us to educate others because if they adopt our principles, the world will be more peaceful. The Chinese do not strive for conversion. In their view, if you do not belong to Chinese culture, you can never become fully Chinese. Thus, they feel America has no moral right to intervene in their domestic affairs. Their analogy to conversion is that the majesty of their performance will so awe other societies that they will follow enough of the Chinese pattern to become cultural and political tributaries.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2016 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: As quoted in "World Chaos and World Order: Conversations With Henry Kissinger", The Atlantic, November 10, 2016

• “An understanding between Washington and Beijing is the essential prerequisite for the denuclearization of Korea. By an ironic evolution, China at this point may have an even greater interest than the U.S. in forestalling the nuclearization of Asia. Beijing runs the risk of deteriorating relations with America if it gets blamed for insufficient pressure on Pyongyang. Since denuclearization requires sustained cooperation, it cannot be achieved by economic pressure. It requires a corollary U.S.-Chinese understanding on the aftermath, specifically about North Korea’s political evolution and deployment restraints on its territory.”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: How to Resolve the North Korea Crisis, by Henry A. Kissinger, The Wall Street Journal, August 11, 2017

• “Negotiations need to begin in the next two months ... before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome. Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante. Pursuing the war beyond that point would turn it into a war not be about the freedom of Ukraine ... but a new war against Russia itself. ... Parties should be brought to peace talks within the next two months. Ukraine should've been a bridge between Europe and Russia, but now, as the relationships are reshaped, we may enter a space where the dividing line is redrawn and Russia is entirely isolated. ... We are facing a situation now where Russia could alienate itself completely from Europe and seek a permanent alliance elsewhere. This may lead to Cold War-like diplomatic distances, which will set us back decades. We should strive for long-term peace...”

  Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Henry Kissinger calls on Zelensky to show 'wisdom' and negotiate with Putin for peace, by Pip Cook, Daily Express (UK) May 24, 2022