Quotes About Bismarck

#1. We should remember what Bismarck said in 1888: "If there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans." Balkan

George Friedman

#2. [Otto von Bismarck] only considered the interests of his own country - always the worst offense that a statesman can commit in the eyes of foreigners.

A.J.P. Taylor

#3. Bismarck's genius, as well as his great flaw, was the same as that of another outstanding nineteenth-century politician of the German-speaking world, Prince Clemens Metternich. Both men were artificers, able to hold off the future by building a fragile present out of pieces of the past.

Robert D. Kaplan

#4. Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.

A.J.P. Taylor

#5. The German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, was one of the few authentic geniuses among nineteenth-century statesmen.

Niall Ferguson

#6. My favorite days off on the road are typically nowhere, like Bismarck, North Dakota, and you find yourself in a mall, and you're like, 'This is awesome!'

Jenny Lewis

#7. Woe to the statesman whose arguments for entering a war are not as convincing at its end as they were at the beginning, Bismarck had cautioned.

Henry Kissinger

#8. Bismarck was a large persian cat owned by Florence Nightingale.

Florence Nightingale

#9. Realpolitik for Bismarck depended on flexibility and on the ability to exploit every available option without the constraint of ideology.

Henry Kissinger

#10. Here's the solution. We need a CO2 tax, revenue-neutral, to replace taxation on employment, which was invented by Bismarck - and some things have changed since the 19th Century.

Al Gore

#11. Everyone who has changed the course of human history, every last one was able to do so only because he was ready for his destiny. That's true of Moses and the Buddha, Napoleon and Bismarck. The wave that carries us, the star that guides us - we cannot choose it.

Hermann Hesse

#12. Otto von Bismarck quipped, Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.

Cory Doctorow

#13. The middle classes, grown prosperous by the belated but staggering development of the industrial revolution and dazzled by the success of Bismarck's policy of force and war, had traded for material gain any aspirations for political freedom they may have had.

William L. Shirer

#14. I have always found the word 'Europe' in the mouths of those politicians who wanted from other powers something they did not dare to demand in their own name. Otto von Bismarck We

David Conway

#15. SOME DAMNED FOOLISH THING in the Balkans, Bismarck had predicted, would ignite the next war. The assassination of the Austrian heir apparent, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, by Serbian nationalists on June 28, 1914, satisfied his condition.

Barbara W. Tuchman

#16. In the early days of his reign, Bismarck confided to a friend that it would some day be necessary for Germany to confine William II in an insane asylum.

Kelly Miller

#17. Like Prince von Bismarck in diplomacy, I have no secrets.

Albert J. Nock

#18. Fools you are who say you like to learn from your mistakes. I prefer to learn from the mistakes of others, and avoid the cost of my own.

Otto Von Bismarck

#19. War should only be used for a policy worth its sacrifices.

Otto Von Bismarck

#20. In England the more horses a nobleman has, the more popular he is. So long as the English are devoted to racing, Socialism has no chance with you.

Otto Von Bismarck

#21. I have often regretted what I have eaten, but never what I have drunk.

Otto Von Bismarck

#22. Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others experience.

Otto Von Bismarck

#23. Politics is the art of the next best.

Otto Von Bismarck

#24. [Government]is cancerous in head and limbs;only its belly is sound, and the laws it excretes are the most strightforward shit in the world.

Otto Von Bismarck

#25. Laws are like sausages. You sleep far better the less you know about how they are made.

Otto Von Bismarck

#26. Vanity is a mortgage that must be deducted from the value of a man.

Otto Von Bismarck

#27. Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness.

Otto Von Bismarck

#28. Nothing should be left to an invaded people except their eyes for weeping.

Otto Von Bismarck

#29. God always looks after the fools and - and the United States.

Otto Von Bismarck

#30. I have only one ambition left: I should like to have a good epitaph.

Otto Von Bismarck

#31. Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war

Otto Von Bismarck

#32. One can put some trust in the gratitude of a sovereign, and also in that of his family; under certain conditions, one can even rely upon it; but one can never expect anything from the gratitude of a nation.

Otto Von Bismarck

#33. Not even the King himself has the right to subordinate the interests of his country to his own feelings of love or hatred towards strangers; he is, however, responsible towards God and not to me if he does so, and therefore on this point I am silent.

Otto Von Bismarck

#34. A conquering army on the border will not be stopped by eloquence.

Otto Von Bismarck

#35. The main thing is to make history not to write it

Otto Von Bismarck

#36. We are better off not knowing how sausages and laws are made.

Otto Von Bismarck

#37. I have always found the word 'Europe' on the lips of those who wanted something from others which they dared not demand in their own names!

Otto Von Bismarck

#38. That which is imposing here on earth has always something of the quality of the fallen angel who is beautiful but without peace, great in his conceptions and exertions but without succes, proud and lonely.

Otto Von Bismarck

#39. Life has taught me to forgive much, but to seek forgiveness still more.

Otto Von Bismarck

#40. Love is blind; friendship tries not to notice.

Otto Von Bismarck

#41. Never fight with Russian. On your every stratagem they answer unpredictable stupidity.

Otto Von Bismarck

#42. God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.

Otto Von Bismarck

#43. There are two things you don't want to see being made - sausage and legislation.

Otto Von Bismarck

#44. I am accustomed to pay men back in their own coin.

Otto Von Bismarck

#45. The most significant event of the 20th century will be the fact that the North Americans speak English.

Otto Von Bismarck

#46. My subject is my life, and my life is my subject.

Otto Von Bismarck

#47. I have seen three emperors in their nakedness, and the sight was not inspiring.

Otto Von Bismarck

#48. We Germans fear God, but nothing else in the world; and it is the fear of God, which lets us love and foster peace.

Otto Von Bismarck

#49. Beware of sentimental alliances where the consciousness of good deeds is the only compensation for noble sacrifices.

Otto Von Bismarck

#50. A statesman ... must wait until he hears the steps of God sounding through events, then leap up and grasp the hem of His garment.

Otto Von Bismarck

#51. I must protest that I would never seek foreign conflicts just to go over domestic difficulties; that would be frivolous. I was speaking of conflicts that we could not avoid, even though we do not seek them.

Otto Von Bismarck

#52. Woe to the leader whose arguments at the end of a war are not as plausible as they were at the beginning.

Otto Von Bismarck

#53. If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made.

Otto Von Bismarck

#54. If there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans.

Otto Von Bismarck

#55. Faust complained about having two souls in his breast, but I harbor a whole crowd of them and they quarrel. It is like being in a republic.

Otto Von Bismarck

#56. The Balkans aren't worth the life of a single Pomeranian grenadier.

Otto Von Bismarck

#57. He obtained from Congress the right to borrow from the people by selling to it the 'bonds' of States ... and the Government and the nation escaped the plots of the foreign financiers. They understood at once, that the United States would escape their grip. The death of Lincoln was resolved upon.

Otto Von Bismarck

#58. With bad laws and good civil servants it's still possible to govern. But with bad civil servants even the best laws can't help.

Otto Von Bismarck

#59. The statesman's task is to hear God's footsteps marching through history, and to try and catch on to His coattails as He marches past.

Otto Von Bismarck

#60. Politics is like sausages, you don't want to watch either being made.

Otto Von Bismarck

#61. Politics is not a science ... but an art.

Otto Von Bismarck

#62. I have never lived on principles. When I have had to act, I never first asked myself on what principles I was going to act, but I went at it and did what I thought fit. I have often reproached myself for my want of principle.

Otto Von Bismarck

#63. We live in a wondrous time, in which the strong is weak because of his scruples and the weak grows strong because of his audacity.

Otto Von Bismarck

#64. Politics is the art of the possible.

Otto Von Bismarck

#65. There are two things civilized Man should never see being made: Sausages and Laws.

Otto Von Bismarck

#66. One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans (1888).

Otto Von Bismarck

#67. I have wished to crush Rome that I might crush Christianity.

Otto Von Bismarck

#68. There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America.

Otto Von Bismarck

#69. Our German forefathers had a very kind religion. They believed that, after death, they would meet again all the good dogs that had been their companions in life. I wish I could believe that too.

Otto Von Bismarck

#70. I have found that nothing so deceives your adversaries as telling them the truth.

Otto Von Bismarck

#71. The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood

Otto Von Bismarck

#72. Politics is no exact science.

Otto Von Bismarck

#73. Politics ruins the character

Otto Von Bismarck

#74. You can't destroy the polish national-consciousness or Poles on the battlefield, but if you give them power, they will destroy themselves

Otto Von Bismarck

#75. To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.

Otto Von Bismarck

#76. Fools you are. To say you learn by your experience. I prefer to profit by others' mistakes and avoid the price of my own.

Otto Von Bismarck

#77. Physicians still retain something of their priestly origin; they would gladly do what they forbid.

Otto Von Bismarck

#78. It is the destiny of the weak to be devoured by the strong.

Otto Von Bismarck

#79. Let them stew in their own grease (or juice).

Otto Von Bismarck

#80. A journalist is a person who has mistaken their calling.

Otto Von Bismarck

#81. Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong: it is a geographical expression.

Otto Von Bismarck

#82. A Bavarian is half-way between an Austrian and a human being.

Otto Von Bismarck

#83. Laws are like medicine; they generally cure an evil by a lesser or a passing evil.

Otto Von Bismarck

#84. Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made.

Otto Von Bismarck

#85. Lord takes care of babes, fools, and the United States.

Otto Von Bismarck

#86. I do not regard the procuring of peace as a matter in which we should play the role of arbiter between different opinions ... more that of an honest broker who really wants to press the business forward.

Otto Von Bismarck

#87. Earthly majesty is always akin to the fallen angel, who is proud and unhappy, beautiful but troubled, and whose plans and efforts, though vast, are denied access.

Otto Von Bismarck

#88. People who love sausage and people who believe in justice should never watch either of them being made

Otto Von Bismarck

#89. I consider even a victorious war as an evil, from which statesmanship must endeavor to spare nations.

Otto Von Bismarck

#90. This policy cannot succeed through speeches, and shooting-matches, and songs; it can only be carried out through blood and iron.

Otto Von Bismarck

#91. The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.

Otto Von Bismarck

#92. When you say you agree to a thing in principle you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.

Otto Von Bismarck

#93. There is only one greater folly than that of the fool who says in his heart there is no God, and that is the folly of the people that says with its head that it does not know whether there is a God or not.

Otto Von Bismarck

#94. Great men have great dogs.

Otto Von Bismarck

#95. Your map of Africa is really quite nice. But my map of Africa lies in Europe. Here is Russia, and here ... is France, and we're in the middle - that's my map of Africa.

Otto Von Bismarck

#96. Universal suffrage is the government of a house by its nursery.

Otto Von Bismarck

#97. An appeal to fear never finds an echo in German hearts.

Otto Von Bismarck

#98. He who has his thumb on the purse has the power.

Otto Von Bismarck

#99. The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they'll sleep at night

Otto Von Bismarck

#100. They treat me like a fox, a cunning fellow ( Schlaukopf ) of the first rank. But the truth is that with a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and when I have to do with a pirate, I try to be a pirate and a half.

Otto Von Bismarck