No foreign policy - no matter how ingenious - has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none.
Interpretation
Successful foreign policy requires widespread support and participation, not just clever ideas from a few individuals.
In this quote, Henry A. Kissinger emphasizes that even the most brilliant foreign policy strategies are doomed to fail if they are not supported by the broader populace. It highlights the importance of inclusivity and shared responsibility in governance, suggesting that successful policy must resonate with the hearts and minds of the many, not just be the product of elite thinkers.
In practice
During a speech on international relations, one might use this quote to emphasize the need for public engagement.
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.
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 I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism.
A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.
When the three branches of government have failed to represent the citizenry and the mass of the media has failed to represent the citizenry, then the citizenry better represent the citizenry.
There's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America.
Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.
Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of government, and at the same time do for it too little. . . . We must strive for normalcy to reach stability.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.