Henry A. Kissinger Quotes

Ambition aspires to descend.

Historically, if you look at great civilizations, why do they crumble? Is it because of what's outside or because of something internal? It's always internal. It is.

The more the history of the World War and what led up to it is studied, the more clearly those tragic years become revealed as a vast collapse of civilization.

Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please …. All history is the record of man’s signal failure to thwart his destiny.

History is the study of what civilizations die from. Literature is the study of what civilizations live for.

… the nature of the breakdowns of civilizations can be summed up in three points: a failure of creative power in the minority, an answering withdrawal of mimesis on the part of the majority, and a consequent loss of social unity in the society as a whole.

Civilization is paralysis.

Things seem to fall apart inevitably.

Civilization is coming to an end, you understand.

A civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless.

When people try to do what they can not do, they wish to give up.

I'm falling into disrepair

When any civilization is dust and ashes," he said, "art is all that's left over. Images, words, music. Imaginative structures. Meaning—human meaning, that is—is defined by them. You have to admit that.

Thus the brave and aspiring life of one man lights a flame in the minds of others of like faculties and impulse; and where there is equally vigorous effort, like distinction and success will almost surely follow. Thus the chain of example is carried down through time in an endless succession of links--admiration exciting imitation, and perpetuating the true aristocracy of genius.

That which we call civilization is merely the accumulated debris of a chilling number of bad nights.

Someone once asked me what I want on my epitaph when I pass away. Just the words 'I tried.' That's what this game of life is all about. Trying. There's the tryers, the criers, and the liars.

When you reach for the stars, you lose blood and tears. That's something you should remember.

Was it a sign of Creeping Decrepitude?

Life’s greatest tragedy consists of men and women who earnestly try, and fail!

Attaining even mediocrity is often a struggle.

You may as well know, also, that every great leader, from the dawn of civilization down to the present, was a dreamer.

To accept civilization as it is practically means accepting decay.

Unless we stop the degradation of our oceans, marine ecological systems will begin collapsing and when enough of them fail, the oceans will die. And if the oceans die, then civilization collapses and we all die

The course of history can be changed but not halted.

The coach has turned into a pumpkin and the mice have all run away.