319 Quotes by Henry A. Kissinger

Superstars strive for approbation; heroes walk alone. Superstars crave consensus; heroes define themselves by the judgment of a future they see it as their task to bring about. Superstars seek success in a technique for eliciting support; heroes pursue success as the outgrowth of inner values.

The enemies you make by taking a decided stand generally have more respect for you than the friends you make by being on the fence

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

Far too often, the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown: whether Ukraine joins the East or the West. But if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side's outpost against the other - it should function as a bridge between them.

Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed.

A leader does not deserve the name unless he is willing occasionally to stand alone.

To have striven so hard, to have molded a public personality out of so amorphous an identity, to have sustained that superhuman effort only to end with every weakness disclosed and every error compounding the downfall--that was a fate of biblical proportions. Evidently the Deity would not tolerate the presumption that all can be manipulated; an object lesson of the limits of human presumption was necessary.

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

I do not stand on protocol. If you just call me Excellency, it will be okay.