Diplomacy - Henry A Kissinger

Rating : 4/5

My fav quotes/one liners .....

1. Man is immortal, his salvation is hereafter

2. "Traveler", there are no roads, Roads are made by walking - Spanish Saying

3. "Knowing what was wrong was easy, Knowing what was right was the hard part" - Gorbachev remarked this way, about the communist system needed to be changed from top to bottom

4. "a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought" - Reagan's overused epigram

5. "the eyes are burned from the head and the hair falls from the body and so forth." - Reagan believes this passage foretold Hiroshima.

6. "We are not involved in the world because we have commitments; we have commitments because we are involved. Our interests must shape my commitments, rather than the other way around" - Richard Nixon's first foreign policy in 1970 expressed this view.

7. "Careful elaboration of political goals and military strategy to achieve them before the decision is made to go to war" - When you need a war ?

8. "When we talk about the violation of the rules of war, we must keep in mind that the fundamental violation, from which all other specific violations follow, is the very waging of this kind of war" - Even Hans Morgenthau, the doyen of American Philosophers of the national interest, commented during America's war in Vietnam

9. "A conventional war is about control of territory; a guerilla war is about the security of the population" - Definition by H.A.Kissinger, while describing the events unfolded during Vietnam war

10. "all nations and all peoples are free to govern themselves as they see fit….. We have sought no territory. We have imposed our will on none. We have asked for no privileges we would not extend to others" - Truman in his inaugural address of January 20, 1949

11. "Man limited by his nature is infinite in his desires" - De Gaulle in 60's

12. "There can be no peace - without law. And there can be no law - if we were to invoke one code of international conduct for those who oppose us - and another for our friends" - Eisenhower in his address of October 31st 1956

13. "We will not accept a Hitler-dominated world. And we will not accept a world, like the postwar world of the 1920s, in which the seeds of Hitlerism can again be planted and allowed to grow.

14. We will accept only a word consecrated to freedom of speech and expression - freedom of every person to worship God in his own way - freedom from want - and freedom from terror " - Roosevelt in his radio address on May 27,1941

15. "The peace, the freedom and the security of ninety percent of the population of the world is being jeopardized by the remaining ten percent who are threatening a breakdown of all international order and law….. It seems to be unfortunately true that the epidemic of world lawlessness is spreading. When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to protect the health of the community against the spread of the diesase" - Famous Quarantine Speech by Roosevelt after his victory in 1936

16. "I feel as if I am pushing open the door to a dark room, never seen before, without knowing what lies behind the door" - Hitler in December 1941 before the second world war

17. "In 1914,there had been a strategy but no policy; in 1939 ,there was a policy but no strategy" - H.A.K's assessment of two world wars

18. "I do not want to be extinguished like a lamp that is smoking. I want to sink down as though I were a star"

19. "Bridge the gap between formulation of an idea and implementation"

20. "It is reality, not publicity, that determines whether a leader has made a difference"