Henry A. Kissinger – 23 Quotes

23 Quotes by Henry A. Kissinger

A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.

– Henry A. Kissinger

People are generally amazed that I would take an interest in any form that would require me to stop talking for three hours.

– Henry A. Kissinger

Art is man’s expression of his joy in labor.

– Henry A. Kissinger

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

– Henry A. Kissinger

A leader who confines his role to his people’s experience dooms himself to stagnation a leader who outstrips his people’s experience runs the risk of not being understood.

– Henry A. Kissinger

The statesman’s duty is to bridge the gap between his nation’s experience and his vision.

– Henry A. Kissinger

Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative.

– Henry A. Kissinger

There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.

– 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.

– Henry A. Kissinger

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

– Henry A. Kissinger

Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.

– Henry A. Kissinger

Power is the great aphrodisiac.

– Henry A. Kissinger

It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.

– Henry A. Kissinger

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

– Henry A. Kissinger

It is, after all, the responsibility of the expert to operate the familiar and that of the leader to transcend it.

– Henry A. Kissinger

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

– Henry A. Kissinger

You can’t make war in the Middle East without Egypt and you can’t make peace without Syria.

– Henry A. Kissinger

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

– Henry A. Kissinger

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

– Henry A. Kissinger

Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.

– 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.

– Henry A. Kissinger

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

– Henry A. 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 A. Kissinger