"I think of myself as a historian more than as a statesman. As a historian, you have to be conscious of the fact that every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed. History is a tale of efforts that failed, of aspirations that weren't realized, of wishes that were fulfilled and then turned out to be different from what one expected. So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy. As a statesman, one has to act on the assumption that problems must be solved."
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Anti-communists from the United StatesCentenariansUnited States Secretaries of StateDiplomats of the United StatesNobel Peace Prize laureates
Original Language: English
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As quoted in an interview with The New York Times (October 13, 1974)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger
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