“A conquering army on the border will not be stopped by eloquence.”

Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.

A government must not waiver once it has chosen its course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward.

History is simply a piece of paper covered with print: the main thing is to make history, not to write it.

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

A generation that has taken a beating is always followed by a generation that deals one.

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.

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

The main thing is to make history, not to write it.

We Germans fear God, but nothing else in the world.

With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half.

Politics is not an exact science.

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

Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.

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

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.

Politics ruins the character.

Do not say that! How few are the Romans and how numerous are we ! ‘An army’s strength lies not in numbers of men but in Allah’s help, and its weakness lies in being forsaken by Allah.

My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.

From the depths of the West of Europe, a young child will be born of poor people, he who by his tongue will seduce a great troop; his fame will increase towards the realm of the East.

Perhaps my dynamite plants will put an end to war sooner than your [pacifist] congresses. On the day two army corps can annihilate each other in one second all civilized nations will recoil from war in horror.

On the fields of Media, of Arabia, and of Armenia, two great armies will assemble thrice. The host near the bank of the Araxes, they will fall in the land of the great Suleiman.

Franco will bring the army from Castille. The ambassador will complain, causing a schism. Rivera’s men will be part of the force. The great man will be denied entry to the gulf.

An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.

Our War of the Revolution was, in good measure, fought as a protest against standing armies.