319 Quotes by Henry A. Kissinger

I believe -- and certainly from everything I've been told about him -- that he's an honorable enough man so that he will carry out his assignment with ability and with care.

You should not go to war for the privilege of withdrawal. You need to define your objective and the outcome, and it cannot be the removal of one man.

In my view, there's no doubt that the Soviets had infinitely greater trouble holding their structure together than we did.

I don't consider China a communist state, no. I know that sounds paradoxical, but it's my view.

There are some people who think that at some time in the future, China may challenge us for supremacy in the Pacific, and therefore, what do we do today to prevent that? And you, of course, will say that we will try to thwart any economic progress in China. If we engaged in such a policy, we would turn a billion-plus people into nationalist opponents of the United States.

The defining issue is that the government in Taiwan was considered to be the government of all of China, and the authorities in Beijing were not recognized as a government of China. So Taiwan was the residuary for all of China.

Our problem was that in the American approach to Soviet affairs policy has oscillated between people who take an essentially psychological approach and people who take an essentially theological approach, and the two really meet. The psychologists try to "understand" the Soviet Union. And try to ease its alleged fears. The theologians say the Soviets are evil.

It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a matter of what is perceived to be true.

You become a superpower by being strong but also by being wise and by being farsighted. But no state is strong or wise enough to create a world order alone.