Quotes by Henry Kissinger

Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed.

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

Nobody will ever win the Battle of the Sexes. There's just too much fraternizing with the enemy.

The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.

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

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

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

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.

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. Each side should know that frequently uncertainty, compromise, and incoherence are the essence of policymaking. Yet each tends to ascribe to the other a consistency, foresight, and coherence that its own experience belies. Of course, over time, even two armed blind men can do enormous damage to each other, not to speak of the room.

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