Your friend was quoting Henry Kissinger.
"Sayre's law is named after Wallace Stanley Sayre (1905-1972), U.S. political scientist and professor at Columbia University....
On 20 December 1973, the Wall Street Journal quoted Sayre as: "Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low." Political scientist Herbert Kaufman, a colleague and coauthor of Sayre, has attested to Fred R. Shapiro, editor of The Yale Book of Quotations, that Sayre usually stated his claim as "The politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low", and that Sayre originated the quip by the early 1950s.
"Many other claimants attach to the thought behind Sayre's Law...."
...including Harvard political scientist Richard Neustadt, business executive Laurence J. Peter, statesman Henry Kissinger, scientist-author C.P. Snow, sociologist and U.S Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and politician Jesse Unruh.
what makes you think henry isnt a friend of mine, eh?