Otto von Bismarck Quotes

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.

Verfallen wir nicht in den Fehler, bei jedem Andersmeinenden entweder an seinem Verständnis oder an seinem guten Willen zu zweifeln.

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 success, proud and lonely.

Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided...but by iron and blood.

Nur ein Idiot glaubt, aus eigenen Erfahrungen zu lernen. Ich ziehe es vor, aus den Erfahrungen anderer zu lernen, um von vorneherein eigene Fehler zu vermeiden.

The position of Prussia in Germany will not be determined by its liberalism but by its power ..

If this political business teaches you one thing, it is that you can be as wise as the wise men of this world, and yet you always wander into the next minute like a child into the dark.

Europe today is a powder keg and the leaders are like men smoking in an arsenal … A single spark will set off an explosion that will consume us all … I cannot tell you when that explosion will occur, but I can tell you where … Some damned foolish thing in the Balkans will set it off.

Crowned heads, wealth and privilege may well tremble should ever again the Black and Red unite!

Who is master of Bohemia is master of Europe.

Every state must be aware that its peace, its security rests on its own sword.

Concerning the blunders which had been made in our foreign policy public opinion is, as a rule, first enlightened when it is in a position to look back upon the history of a generation, and the Achivi qui plectuntur are not always immediately contemporary with the mistaken actions.

If we really came to a position in which we could no longer produce the grain which we must necessarily consume, then in what state would we be if in wartime we had no Russian grain imports and perhaps simultaneously were blockaded along our coasts – in other words, if we had no grain at all?

In the domain of political economy the abstract doctrines of science leave me perfectly cold, my only standard of judgment being experience.

I have never judged international disputes by the standards which prevail at a student's duel.