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.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of integrity and unwavering principles, even in moments of vulnerability.
Henry A. Kissinger's quote highlights the idea that, in the face of captivity or adversity, one should remain steadfast in their principles and not compromise on their values. It suggests that any request for negotiation under duress should not be taken as a genuine willingness to negotiate, but rather as a sign of coercion, emphasizing the need to maintain one's integrity even in challenging situations.
In practice
During a speech on human rights, to illustrate the importance of standing firm in one's beliefs even under pressure.
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.
Strength is one of those things you're supposed to have. You don't feel that you have it at the time you're going through it.
I was the guy who was constantly speaking out against the Vietnam War. I have no regrets about that.
I think that when you are on a four-inch balance beam, you don't care about laughing or smiling or waving to the crowd because you're going to be down in a second.
I have no help to send, therefore I must go myself.
As a kid growing up, I didn't want to tell any of my classmates I did figure-skating because I knew they'd be like, 'Oh, you're a skater, you're gay, blah blah blah.' So I kept it to myself. Once I started getting to more of an elite level, I didn't really care what people thought, though.
Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.
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