A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security.
Interpretation
Moral perfection in foreign policy is unattainable and can lead to neither safety nor idealism.
Henry Kissinger's quote suggests that striving for absolute moral perfection in the realm of foreign policy is unrealistic and counterproductive. Rather than achieving a flawless or secure outcome, such an approach can lead to failures and vulnerabilities, as the complexities of international relations often require pragmatic, rather than purely idealistic, decisions.
In practice
A speaker at a political conference discussing the complexities of international relations.
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.
If you spend enough time around something like baboons, you start to look at humans differently.
Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
We need... to say to people that this is a temporary residential status, and we expect that, once there is peace in Syria again, once IS has been defeated in Iraq, that you go back to your home country with the knowledge that you have gained.
Liberty, Humanity, Justice, Equality
Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold it's great proportions.
Real history is far more complex and interesting than the simplistic summaries presented in Wikipedia articles. Knowing this allows you to question received wisdom, to challenge 'facts' 'everybody' knows to be true, and to imagine worlds and characters worthy of our rich historical heritage and our complex selves.
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