Henry Kissinger Quotes

The real distinction is between those who adapt their purposes to reality and those who seek to mold reality in the light of their purposes.

Henry Kissinger

• Distinction
• Reality
• Purposes

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Quotes to Explore

• The history of philosophy is not, like the history of the sciences, to be studied with the intellect alone. That which is receptive in us and that which impinges upon us from history is the reality of man's being, unfolding itself in thought.

  

  Karl Jaspers
  • History
  • Man
  • Reality

• I'm half living my life between reality and fantasy at all times. It's best not to ask questions and just enjoy.

  

  Lady Gaga
  • Life
  • Reality
  • Best

• When I first joined 'Dancing with the Stars,' I did not want to do it. It's not what I like, it's not what I believe in... the judges are fake, this is fake, that is fake... there is not a lot of reality.

  

  Maksim Chmerkovskiy
  • Believe
  • Reality
  • Stars

• To act: that is what the writer would like to be able to do, above all. To act, rather than to bear witness. To write, imagine, and dream in such a way that his words and inventions and dreams will have an impact upon reality, will change people's minds and hearts, will prepare the way for a better world.

  

  J. M. G. Le Clezio
  • People
  • World
  • Dream

• Imagination is not something apart and hermetic, not a way of leaving reality behind; it is a way of engaging reality.

  

  Irving Howe
  • Reality
  • Imagination
  • Leaving

• All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality - the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.

  

  Walter Bagehot
  • World
  • Reality
  • Best

• Concentration of the mind is in a way common to both Knowledge and Yoga. Yoga aims at union of the individual with the universal, the Reality. This Reality cannot be new. It must exist even now, and it does exist.

  

  Ramana Maharshi
  • Mind
  • Reality
  • Knowledge

• Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.

  

  Jack Welch
  • Reality
  • Wish
  • Face

• In a multicultural, diverse society there are countless ways in which people negotiate the everyday lived experience and reality of diversity.

  

  Randa Abdel-Fattah
  • People
  • Experience
  • Society

• The reality is that politicians, in terms of the amount of power they wield and the amount that they work, don't actually make that much money.

  

  Beau Willimon
  • Work
  • Money
  • Power

• Pain is something that's common to human life. When we ignore it, we aren't engaging in the whole reality, and the pain begins to fester.

  

  Karen Armstrong
  • Life
  • Reality
  • Pain

• The reality is that no one can be forced to join a union against their will, and a union cannot take action against those who decide not to join their union.

  

  Dan Lipinski
  • Reality
  • Action
  • Take

• The 'good' mother, with her fixed smile, her rigidity, her goody-goody outlook, her obsession with unnecessary hygiene, is in fact a fool. It is the 'bad' mother, unafraid of a joke and a glass of wine, richly self-expressive, scornful of suburban values, who is, in reality, good.

  

  Rachel Cusk
  • Good
  • Bad
  • Mother

• There is a bird in a poem by T. S. Eliot who says that mankind cannot bear very much reality; but the bird is mistaken. A man can endure the entire weight of the universe for eighty years. It is unreality that he cannot bear.

  

  Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Reality
  • Universe
  • Bird

• Wonder, or radical amazement, is a way of going beyond what is given in thing and thought, refusing to take anything for granted, to regard anything as final. It is our honest response to the grandeur and mystery of reality our confrontation with that which transcends the given.

  

  Abraham Joshua Heschel
  • Reality
  • Wonder

• We should learn from the mistakes and experiences of others, particularly from those less knowledgable than we are. If our experiences are not grounded in reality, our decisions can never be correct.

  

  Amitabh Bachchan
  • Reality

• Dreams, Mr. Nyazi, are perfect ideals, complete in themselves. How can you impose them on a constantly changing, imperfect, incomplete reality? You would become a Humbert, destroying the object of your dream; or a Gatsby, destroying yourself.

  

  Azar Nafisi
  • Dream
  • Reality
  • Perfect

• I pay these niggers with a reality check

  

  Lil Wayne
  • Reality

• Don't ever dare to take your college as a matter of course - because, like democracy and freedom, many people you'll never know have broken their hearts to get it for you.

  

  Alice Miller
  • People
  • Freedom
  • College

• For the left-leaning, political identity is liable to be closely intertwined with personal identity. The left is collusive, if not presumptuous: should you get on well with leftists at a party, they will blithely assume that you share the same views on the invasion of Iraq, even if all you've talked about is the canapes.

  

  Lionel Shriver
  • Political
  • Party
  • Identity

• The most nervous-making point at the moment is Brazil, ... The international economy rallied around Brazil and hopes very much the Brazilians will be able to fulfill their part of the bargain with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and keep their economy from going under.

  

  Alice Rivlin
  • Economy
  • Brazil
  • IMF

• And if you can find out something about the laws of your own growth and vision as well as those of photography you may be able to relate the two, create an object that has a life of its own, which transcends craftsmanship. That is a long road, and because it must be your own road nobody can teach it to you or find it for you. There are no shortcuts, no rules.

  

  Paul Strand
  • Life
  • Long
  • May

• I'm not a foodie; I'm an eatie. I don't have anything against foodies. I just don't have the time or the interest to do that much research.

  

  Jim Gaffigan
  • Interest
  • Research

• The real distinction is between those who adapt their purposes to reality and those who seek to mold reality in the light of their purposes.

  

  Henry Kissinger
  • Distinction
  • Reality
  • Purposes