1923-, American Republican Politician, Secretary of State
Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.
Henry Kissinger – [Leaders and Leadership]
Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.
Henry Kissinger – [Adversity]
Even a paranoid can have enemies.
Henry Kissinger – [Enemies]
For other nations, utopia is a blessed past never to be recovered; for Americans it is just beyond the horizon.
Henry Kissinger – [America]
I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.
Henry Kissinger – [Autobiography]
If it's going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.
Henry Kissinger – [Politicians and Politics]
If we do what is necessary, all the odds are in our favor.
Henry Kissinger – [Advantage]
If you don't know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.
Henry Kissinger – [Goals]
It is, after all, the responsibility of the expert to operate the familiar and that of the leader to transcend it.
Henry Kissinger – [Experts]
Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.
Henry Kissinger – [Leaders and Leadership]
Moderation is a virtue only in those who are thought to have an alternative.
Henry Kissinger – [Moderation]
Ninety percent of politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
Henry Kissinger – [Politicians and Politics]
Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
Henry Kissinger – [Power]
The essence of this man [Richard M. Nixon] is loneliness.
Henry Kissinger – [Loneliness]
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
Henry Kissinger – [Constitutions]
The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself.
Henry Kissinger – [Reliance]
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that, if you bore people, they think it's their fault.
Henry Kissinger – [Bores and Boredom]
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.
Henry Kissinger – [Arms Race]
The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
Henry Kissinger – [Leaders and Leadership]
There can't be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full.
Henry Kissinger – [Crisis]