Henry Kissinger Quotes

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.

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

Any fact that needs to be disclosed should be put out now or as quickly as possible, because otherwise the bleeding will not end.

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.

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

The nice thing about being a celebrity is that, if you bore people, they think it’s their fault.

There is obviously a gap between the public’s perception of the role of U.S. foreign policy and the elite’s perception.

I have spoken to Chinese leaders occasionally on human rights, but I’ve always done it in private.

We are all the President’s men.

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

The Trump phenomenon is in large part a reaction of Middle America to attacks on its values by intellectual and academic communities. There are other reasons, but this is a significant one.

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

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

Donald Trump is a phenomenon that foreign countries haven’t seen. So it is a shocking experience to them that he came in to office.

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

The American temptation is to believe that foreign policy is a subdivision of psychiatry.

Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both had exceptional natural abilities. Nelson Rockefeller was very good statewide but never gained national traction.