Kissinger Quotes

“If I had to choose between justice and disorder, on the one hand, and injustice and order, on the other, I would always choose the latter.”
― Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography

“He has a second-rate mind but a first-rate intuition about people,” Kissinger once said of Rockefeller. “I have a first-rate mind but a third-rate intuition about people.”
― Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography

“It was easy for human rights crusaders and peace activists to insist on perfection in this world. But the policymaker who has to deal with reality learns to seek the best that can be achieved rather than the best that can be imagined. It would be wonderful to banish the role of military power from world affairs, but the world is not perfect, as he had learned as a child. Those with true responsibility for peace, unlike those on the sidelines, cannot afford pure idealism. They must have the courage to deal with ambiguities and accommodations, to realize that great goals can be achieved only in imperfect steps. No side has a monopoly on morality.9”
― Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography

“Bismarck urged that foreign policy had to be based not on sentiment but on an assessment of strength,” Kissinger wrote. That would also become one of Kissinger’s guiding principles.”
― Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography

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― Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography

“Kissinger once said of Israel’s Moshe Dayan that he was “a brilliant manipulator of people and yet emotionally dependent on them.”
― Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography

“reliable rule of diplomacy that you cannot win at the bargaining table something that you would be unable to win on the ground.”
― Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography

“Given a choice of order or justice, he often said, paraphrasing Goethe, he would choose order. He had seen too clearly the consequences of disorder.”
― Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography

“As the crisis waned during the fall of 1961, so did the last vestiges of Kissinger’s influence at the White House. In October he cleaned out his desk. Bundy sent him a letter of perfunctory thanks, which added that the White House had decided not to make a public announcement of his departure.13”
― Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography

“responded with a presidential note describing how Washington defined a “base.” Work on the new facility was halted,”
― Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography

“Kissinger’s main course was “Principles of International Relations,” which usually drew more than two hundred undergraduates enticed by his newfound humor and charisma. He started with Napoleon, dwelled on Metternich and Bismarck, and concluded with an analysis of the current trends in arms control.”
― Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography

“press or to Congressional committees. Thus the only way secrecy can be kept is to exclude from the making of the decision all those who”
― Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography

“Only through the personal awareness and “inward conviction” that we each have of our own freedom, Kissinger concluded.”
― Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography

“Man’s knowledge of freedom, Kissinger argued, must come from an inner intuition.”
― Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography

“Causality expresses the pattern which the mind imposes on a sequence of events in order to make their appearance comprehensible.”
― Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography

“It was not in Kissinger's nature to be charitable towards those he did not respect.”
― Walter Isaacson, Kissinger