Otto Von Bismarck Quotes
1. Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.
2. Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best
3. Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others.
4. One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans
5. People never lie so much as before an election, during a war, or after a hunt.
6. God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.
7. Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.
8. When you want to fool the world, tell the truth.
9. Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.
10. Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made.
11. Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness.
12. It is the destiny of the weak to be devoured by the strong.
13. Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war
14. 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.
15. The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.
16. Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others experience.
17. man cannot control the current of events. he can only float with them and steer
18. Politics are not a science based on logic; they are the capacity of always choosing at each instant, in constantly changing situations, the least harmful, the most useful.
19. The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood
20. Crowned heads, wealth and privilege may well tremble should ever again the Black and Red unite!”
-after the split between Anarchists and Marxists in 1872
21. Hounds follow those who feed them.
22. The main thing is to make history not to write it
23. 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.
24. Politics ruins the character
25. People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.
26. I have a burden on my soul. During my long life, I did not make anyone happy, neither my friends, nor my family, nor even myself. I have done many evil things…I was the cause of the beginning of three big wars. About 800,000 people were killed because of me on the battlefields., and their mothers, brothers, and widows cried for them. And now this stands between me and God.
27. Never believe anything in politics until it has been offically denied.
28. 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.
29. If there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans.
30. Life is like being with a dentist. You always think that the worst is the one that is still on its way to you, even though it is already over.
31. Politics is the art of the possible,the science of the relative.
32. Politics is not an exact science.
33. An appeal to fear never finds an echo in German hearts.
34. 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.
35. Political judgment is the ability to hear the distant hoofbeats of the horse of history.
36. The Balkans aren’t worth the life of a single Pomeranian grenadier.
37. [N]icht durch Reden und Majoritätsbeschlüsse werden die großen Fragen der Zeit entschiedenen […] sondern durch Eisen und Blut.
38. A conquering army on the border will not be stopped by eloquence.
39. [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.
40. In order to retain a certain respect for sausages and laws, one must not see them being made.
41. People lie the most: after hunting, during war and before the election.
42. People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.
43. The main thing is to make history, not to write it
44. Verfallen wir nicht in den Fehler, bei jedem Andersmeinenden entweder an seinem Verständnis oder an seinem guten Willen zu zweifeln.
45. Life is like being at the dentist. You always think the worst is still to come, and it is over already
46. 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.
47. The greatest burden for the working class is uncertainty of life. They can never be certain that they will have a job, or that they will have heal and the ability to work. We cannot protect a man from all sickness and misfortune.
48. A rich society must care for the poor
49. Life is like being at the dentist. You always think that the worst is still to come, and yet it is over already.
50. Woe to the leader whose arguments at the end of a war are not as plausible as they were at the beginning.
51. Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.
52. 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.
53. Lord takes care of babes, fools, and the United States.
