Lord takes care of babes, fools, and the United States. - Otto von Bismarck

Not by speeches and votes of the majority, are the great questions of the time decided — that was the error of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and blood.

Struggle is everywhere, without struggle no life, and if we want to go on living, we must be ready for further struggles.

Let us close our doors and erect somewhat higher barriers and let us thus take care to preserve at least the German market to German industry. The chances of a large export trade are nowadays exceedingly precarious. There are now no more great countries to discover. The globe is circumnavigated, and we can no longer find any large purchasing nations. Commercial treaties, it is true, are under certain circumstances favourable to foreign trade; but whenever a treaty is concluded, it is a question of Qui trompe-t-on ici?—who is taken in? As a rule one of the parties is, but only after a number of years is it known which one.