History knows no resting places and no plateaus.

Kissinger’s line frames history as an ongoing process rather than a sequence that ever “settles” into a stable equilibrium. The metaphor of “no resting places and no plateaus” suggests that political orders, alliances, and balances of power are inherently temporary: even apparent stability is only a phase within continuous change. Read this way, the quote cautions statesmen against complacency and against treating any diplomatic settlement as final. It also implies a moral and strategic burden—leaders must continually adapt institutions and policies to shifting conditions, because history will keep moving regardless of human desire for closure or permanence.