“If we could read the past histories of all our enemies we would disregard all hostility for them.”

All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity; the less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything.

If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.

The only victories which leave no regret are those which are gained over ignorance.

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.

A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.

To write history one must be more than a man, since the author who holds the pen of this great justiciary must be free from all preoccupation of interest or vanity.

Success is the most convincing talker in the world.

A throne is only a bench covered with velvet.

Nothing is lost as long as courage remains

It’s the unconquerable soul of man, and not the nature of the weapon he uses, that ensures victory

We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.

It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.

Orders and decorations are necessary in order to dazzle the people.

A woman laughing is a woman conquered.

Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him.

One is more certain to influence men, to produce more effect on them, by absurdities than by sensible ideas.

If you want to make history, you have to do historic things.

Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.

Man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole cloth; he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but out of such as he finds close at hand.

Cultures aren’t so much planned as they evolve from that early set of people.

I had no idea that history was being made. I was just tired of giving up.

A race of people is like and individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself.

The only persons who really changed history are those who changed men’s thinking about themselves.

As soon as histories are properly told there is no more need of romances.