Education Quote by Henry A. Kissinger

Power, Kissinger suggests, is an accelerator, not an engine. High office doesn`t mint wisdom; it burns through whatever you brought with you. That`s a quietly devastating claim from a man often treated as the avatar of realist mastery. The line turns the usual civics myth inside out: we like to imagine the Oval Office (or State Department) as a crucible that produces deeper judgment. Kissinger argues it mostly produces process competence - the ability to choose under pressure - while leaving the chooser`s worldview largely untouched.

The intent is both diagnostic and self-exculpatory. Diagnostic because it frames governance as triage: endless briefings, crises, and bureaucratic knife-fights reward speed, stamina, and risk management, not contemplation. Self-exculpatory because it shifts responsibility from the institution to the individual: if leaders don`t gain "substance", it`s not because the system is broken; it`s because office cannot supply what the person didn`t have. That is classic Kissingerian realism dressed as managerial anthropology.

The subtext is a warning about the seductions of proximity to power. Being the decider can feel like being the thinker, but the job`s incentives push toward narrowing: fewer hypotheses, more heuristics; fewer first principles, more "what will get through tomorrow". "Consumes intellectual capital" is the tell - a financial metaphor that implies a finite reserve, depleted by meetings, memos, and the need to appear certain.

Context matters: Kissinger built a career on the premise that history and strategic theory should guide statecraft. Here he admits the state tends to chew up that very theory. It`s an argument for doing the hard thinking before you enter the room where decisions get made - because once you`re inside, the room does the thinking for you.