Quotes from Henry Kissinger

Almost as if according to some natural law, in every century there seems to emerge a country with the power, the will, and the intellectual and moral impetus to shape the entire international system in accordance with its own values.

When information is contextualized, it becomes knowledge. When knowledge compels convictions, it becomes wisdom.

O mundo que despontava com a Guerra Fria ia assentar os seus equilíbrios na conduta e no armamento de duas superpotências: os Estados Unidos, além Atlântico, e a União Soviética

To understand a man,' Napoleon is said to have observed, 'look at the world when he was twenty.' Thatcher had turned twenty in 1945.

o equilíbrio de poder precisa de ser reavaliado de tempos a tempos. É ele que desencadeia as guerras cuja dimensão limita.

For one thousand years, the peoples of Europe had taken for granted that whatever the fluctuations in the balance of power, its constituent elements resided in Europe. The world of the emerging Cold War sought its balances in the conduct and armament of two superpowers: the United States across the Atlantic and the Soviet Union at the geographic fringes of Europe.

The Middle East is caught in a confrontation akin to—but broader than—Europe's pre-Westphalian wars of religion. Domestic and international conflicts reinforce each other. Political, sectarian, tribal, territorial, ideological, and traditional national-interest disputes merge. Religion is "weaponized" in the service of geopolitical objectives; civilians are marked for extermination based on their sectarian affiliation.

As nuclear weapons spread into more and more hands, the calculus of deterrence grows increasingly ephemeral and deterrence less and less reliable. In a widely proliferated world, it becomes ever more difficult to decide who is deterring whom and by what calculations.

As "the East," it has never been clearly parallel to "the West." There has been no common religion, not even one splintered into different branches as is Christianity in the West. Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity all thrive in different parts of Asia.

China, until the modern age, imposed its own matrix of customs and culture on invaders so successfully that they grew indistinguishable from the Chinese people. By contrast, India transcended foreigners not by converting them to Indian religion or culture but by treating their ambitions with supreme equanimity; it integrated their achievements and their diverse doctrines into the fabric of Indian life without ever professing to be especially awed by any of them.

American approach to policy is pragmatic; China's is conceptual. America has never had a powerful threatening neighbor; China has never been without a powerful adversary on its borders. Americans hold that every problem has a solution; Chinese think that each solution is an admission ticket to a new set of problems. Americans seek an outcome responding to immediate circumstances; Chinese concentrate on evolutionary change.

El renacimiento que experimentó Reino Unido gracias a Thatcher fue un proyecto económico y espiritual. Cuando se convirtió en primera ministra, la decadencia nacional no solo se debía a una

Sin embargo, en los primeros años de la dinastía Ming, entre 1405 y 1433, China abordó una de las empresas navales más notables y misteriosas de toda la historia: el almirante Zheng He emprendió viaje con unas flotas compuestas por «barcos del tesoro», tecnológicamente sin precedentes, hacia lejanos destinos como Java, la India, el Cuerno de África y el estrecho de Ormuz.

El renacimiento que experimentó Reino Unido gracias a Thatcher fue un proyecto económico y espiritual. Cuando se convirtió en primera ministra, la decadencia nacional no solo se debía a una economía

No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there's too much fraternising with the enemy.

con sus convicciones. También cuando las condiciones eran ambiguas, había grandes riesgos y el apoyo público parecía disminuir. Nunca se retractó de su estrategia, al comienzo de su mandato, de reducir la oferta de dinero para frenar la inflación.

Letting Stalin lead Mao into authorizing the Korean War was the only strategic mistake Mao ever made because, in the end, the Korean War delayed Chinese unification by a century in that it led to America's commitment to Taiwan.

Every age has its leitmotif, a set of beliefs that explains the universe, that inspires or consoles the individual by providing an explanation for the multiplicity of events impinging on him. In the medieval period, it was religion; in the Enlightenment, it was Reason; in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it was nationalism combined with a view of history as a motivating force. Science and technology are the governing concepts of our age.

Rakousko, kdysi považované za jednu z nejsilnÄ›jÅ¡ích a nejlépe Ã…â"¢ízených zemí v EvropÄ›, se stalo zranitelným vlivem své polohy uprostÃ…â"¢ed Evropy: kdykoli se kontinent zatÃ…â"¢ásl, dolehla sem odezva. Mnohojazy?ný ráz Ã…â"¢íÅ¡e ji též ?inil snadným ter?em sílící vlny nacionalismu, síly, která byla jeÅ¡tÄ› o generaci dÃ…â"¢íve v podstatÄ› neznámá.

The pursuit of transparency and connectivity in all aspects of existence, by destroying privacy, inhibits the development of personalities with the strength to take lonely decisions.

can the need for philosophy be met by humans assisted by AIs, which interpret and thus understand the world differently?

Žádná spole?nost nikdy nemÄ›la sílu, žádný v?dce odolnost a žádná víra energii nutnou k tomu, aby své zákony prosadila trvale na celém svÄ›tÄ›. Univerzální moc se prokázala jako nedosažitelná a islám v tomto bodÄ› není výjimkou.

In conflict situations, social networking may serve as a platform to reinforce traditional social fissures as much as it dispels them. The widespread sharing of videotaped atrocities in the Syrian civil war appears to have done more to harden the resolve of the warring parties than to stop the killing, while the notorious ISIL has used social media to declare a caliphate and exhort holy war.

Relations between China and the United States need not - and should not - become a zero-sum game ... Key issues on the international front are global in nature. Consensus may prove difficult, but confronation on these issues is self-defeating.