Famous Henry Kissinger Quotations

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"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer."
by Henry Kissinger
"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."
by Henry Kissinger
"Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac."
by Henry Kissinger
"Power is the great aphrodisiac."
by Henry Kissinger
"Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation."
by Henry A. Kissinger
"A crisis does not always appear to a policymaker as a series of dramatic events. Usually it imposes itself as an exhausting agenda of petty chores demanding both concentration and endurance."
by Henry Kissinger
"Deep versed in books and shallow in himself"
by Henry Kissinger
"Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem."
by Henry Kissinger
"Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed."
by Henry Kissinger
"Henry Kissinger may have wished I had presented him as a combination of Charles DeGaulle and Disraeli, but I didn't. . .out of respect for DeGaulle and Disraeli. I described him as a cowboy because thats how he described himself. If I were a cowboy I would be offended."
by Oriana Fallaci
"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."
by Henry A. Kissinger
"History knows no resting places and no plateaus."
by Henry Kissinger
"I can think of no faster way to unite the American people behind George W. Bush than a terrorist attack on an American target overseas. And I believe George W. Bush will quickly unite the American people through his foreign policy."
by Henry A. Kissinger
"I hope you don't learn too fast."
by Henry A. Kissinger
"I think, to look at withdrawal from Iraq strictly in terms of our own election cycle could lead to a disaster."
by Henry A. Kissinger
"I'd rather use the nuclear bomb...Does that bother you I just want you to think big, Henry, for Christ's sake. to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on escalating the Vietnam War"
by Richard Milhous Nixon
"If eighty percent of your sales come from twenty percent of all of your items, just carry those twenty percent"
by Henry Kissinger
"If the businessman would stop talking like a computer printout or a page from the corporate annual report, other people would stop thinking he had a cash register for a heart"
by Henry Kissinger
"If peace is equated simply with the absence of war, it can become abject pacifism that turns the world over to the most ruthless."
by Henry Kissinger
"If you don't know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere."
by Henry Kissinger
"In relations with many domestically weak countries, a radio transmitter can be a more effective for form of pressure than a squadron of B-52's."
by Henry A. Kissinger
"It is hard to believe that Kay is no longer among us. But in a way, she will never leave us. Her place in this country will not be filled, nor the void her death leaves on the lives of her friends,"
by Henry A. Kissinger
"It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a matter of what is perceived to be true"
by Henry Kissinger
"It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise."
by Henry Kissinger
"Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative."
by Henry Kissinger
"Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative"
by Henry Kissinger
"Nixon had three goals to win by the biggest electoral landslide in history to be remembered as a peacemaker and to be accepted by the 'Establishment' as an equal. He achieved all these objectives at the end of 1972 and the beginning of 1973. And he lost them all two months later-partly because he turned a dream into an obsession."
by Henry Kissinger
"Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation."
by Henry Kissinger
"Ninety percent of all politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation."
by Henry A. Kissinger
"No foreign policy-no matter how ingenious-has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none."
by Henry Kissinger
"No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time"
by Henry Kissinger
"No side will win the Battle of the Sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy"
by Henry Kissinger
"No one will ever win the battle of the sexes, because there is too much fraternizing with the enemy."
by Henry Kissinger
"Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's too much fraternizing with the enemy."
by Henry A. Kissinger
"Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes. There's just too much fraternizing with the enemy."
by Henry Kissinger
"People are generally amazed that I would take an interest in any form that would require me to stop talking for three hours"
by Henry Kissinger
"Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac"
by Henry Kissinger
"The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously."
by Henry Kissinger
"The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously"
by Henry Kissinger
"The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose."
by Henry Kissinger
"The essence of Richard Nixon is loneliness."
by Henry A. Kissinger
"The great tragedies of history occur not when right confronts wrong but when two rights confront each other."
by Henry Kissinger
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer"
by Henry Kissinger
"The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself"
by Henry Kissinger
"The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it's their fault."
by Henry Kissinger
"The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it's their fault"
by Henry A. Kissinger
"The president is trying to head out in a direction that avoids civil war in Iraq, and that prevents the insurgents from dominating and establishing some sort of fundamentalist regime."
by Henry A. Kissinger
"The real distinction is between those who adapt their purposes to reality and those who seek to mold reality in the light of their purposes."
by Henry Kissinger
"The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been."
by Henry Kissinger
"The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been"
by 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."
by Henry Kissinger
"There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full."
by Henry Kissinger
"There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full"
by Henry Kissinger
"To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it"
by Henry Kissinger
"University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small."
by Henry Kissinger
"University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small"
by Henry Kissinger
"We cannot always assure the future of our friends; we have a better chance of assuring our future if we remember who our friends are."
by Henry A. Kissinger
"We cannot always assure the future of our friends we have a better chance of assuring our future if we remember who our friends are."
by Henry Kissinger
"Whatever must happen ultimately should happen immediately"
by Henry Kissinger
"When you meet the president, you ask yourself, How did it ever occur to anybody that he should be governor much less president"
by Henry Kissinger
"You're so goddamned concerned about the civilians, and I don't give a damn. to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger on civilian casualties in Vietnam"
by Richard Milhous Nixon
"If we do what is necessary, all the odds are in our favor."
by Henry Kissinger
"The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself."
by Henry Kissinger
"Infatuation is when you think that he's as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize that he's as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Conners, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger, and nothing like Robert Redford--but you'll take him anyway."
by Judith Viorst
"Next week there can't be any crisis. My schedule is full already."
by Henry A. Kissinger
"I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850."
by Henry Kissinger
"The essence of this man Richard M. Nixon is loneliness."
by Henry Kissinger
"If it's going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately."
by Henry Kissinger
"There can't be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full."
by Henry A. Kissinger
"Statesman create; ordinary leaders consume. The ordinary leader is satisfied with ameliorating the environment, not transforming it; a statesm..."
by Henry Kissinger


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