Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.
Henry A. KissingerRead
Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed. History is a tale of efforts that failed, or aspirations that weren’t realized. So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Civilizations rise and fall, and this cyclical nature of history is a source of tragic inevitability.
Henry A. Kissinger reflects on the fate of civilizations throughout history, emphasizing that all have faced collapse and failure despite their aspirations. As a historian, he acknowledges that understanding this pattern is essential, as it shapes the perspective with which one approaches the study of history, infusing it with a sense of inevitable tragedy and loss.
Themes
CivilizationCollapseHistoryInevitabilityTragedyAspiration
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on the lessons of history, one might say, 'As Kissinger pointed out, every civilization has ultimately collapsed.'
More from Henry A. Kissinger
All quotes →It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.
Henry A. KissingerRead
The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.
Henry A. KissingerRead
If peace is equated simply with the absence of war, it can become abject pacifism that turns the world over to the most ruthless.
Henry A. KissingerRead
What political leaders decide, intelligence services tend to seek to justify.
Henry A. KissingerRead
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.
Henry A. KissingerRead
Similar quotes
The British are coming. One if by land, two if by sea.
Paul RevereRead
Strange as it may seem, George Washington's life has now been so minutely documented that we know far more about him than did his own friends, family, and contemporaries.
Ron ChernowRead
When I was a boy we didn't wake up with Vietnam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner.
Lyndon B. JohnsonRead
For one thing, before the 20th century, there were plenty of genocides. We tend to forget about them, partly because they weren't as well documented and partly because, until recently, people didn't care. We used euphemisms like 'sackings' and 'sieges' instead of calling them 'genocides.'
Steven PinkerRead
We came here to a country that was populated by Arabs and we are building here a Hebrew, a Jewish state; instead of the Arab villages, Jewish villages were established. You even do not know the names of those villages, and I do not blame you because these villages no longer exist. There is not a single Jewish settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab Village.
Moshe DayanRead
I hope my journals relating to World War II will help clarify issues of the past and thereby contribute to understanding the issues and conditions of the present and future.
Charles LindberghRead