It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the inevitability of certain actions shaped by one's nature and circumstances.
Henry A. Kissinger's quote suggests that actions driven by one's innate characteristics and external conditions are often unavoidable, much like a Greek tragedy where the fate of characters is predetermined. Nixon's actions are portrayed as an expression of his nature, indicating that once a particular path is taken, it can lead to an inescapable outcome.
In practice
In a discussion about historical events that shaped politics, this quote reinforces the idea that leaders are often trapped by their own decisions.
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.
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 I should ever be captured, I want no negotiation - and if I should request a negotiation from captivity they should consider that a sign of duress.
Solidarity is not a matter of altruism. Solidarity comes from the inability to tolerate the affront to our own integrity of passive or active collaboration in the oppression of others, and from the deep recognition of our most expansive self-interest. From the recognition that, like it or not, our liberation is bound up with that of every other being on the planet, and that politically, spiritually, in our heart of hearts we know anything else is unaffordable.
I believe we are put here to improve civilisation.
The end doesn't justify the means.
Recognition of the inevitability of comprehensive bureaucratization does not solve the problems that arise out of it.
Why does no one confess his sins? Because he is yet in them. It is for a man who has awoke from sleep to tell his dreams.
I am an old sinner; and if God had designed mercy for me, he would have called me home to himself before now.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.