America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that relationships between countries are based on changing interests rather than fixed alliances or enmities.
Henry A. Kissinger's quote emphasizes the transient nature of international relations, highlighting that nations prioritize their interests over personal loyalties or long-standing partnerships. This perspective implies that alliances and conflicts are subject to change, depending on the evolving needs and strategies of the countries involved, indicating a pragmatic approach to diplomacy and foreign policy.
In practice
In a discussion about foreign policy at a conference.
Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed. History is a tale of efforts that failed, or aspirations that werenβt realized. So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy.
Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.
It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.
The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.
If peace is equated simply with the absence of war, it can become abject pacifism that turns the world over to the most ruthless.
What political leaders decide, intelligence services tend to seek to justify.
The ability of humans to read meaning into patterns is the most defining characteristic we have.
One cannot in the nature of things expect a little tree that has been turned into a club to put forth leaves.
What delights, what pleasures does your life offer you that outweigh the raptures of death?
It is taboo in our society to criticize a persons religious faith... these taboos are offensive, deeply unreasonable, but worse than that, they are getting people killed. This is really my concern. My concern is that our religions, the diversity of our religious doctrines, is going to get us killed. I'm worried that our religious discourse- our religious beliefs are ultimately incompatible with civilization.
Truly, nothing in the world has so occupied my thoughts as this I, this riddle, the fact I am alive, that I am separated and isolated from all others, that I am Siddhartha! And about nothing in the world do I know less about than me, about Siddhartha!
Clergyman: A ticket speculator outside the gates of Heaven.
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