“All treaties between great states cease to be binding when they come in conflict with the struggle for existence.”

It is the destiny of the weak to be devoured by the strong.

When you want to fool the world, tell the truth.

The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.

Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.

I have found that nothing so deceives your adversaries as telling them the truth.

A little caution outflanks a large cavalry.

There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America.

A really great man is known by three signs: generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in success.

A bad plan that is well executed will yield much better results than a good plan that is poorly executed.

Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness.

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.

Politics is the art of the possible.

An appeal to fear never finds an echo in German hearts.

People never lie so much as before an election, during a war, or after a hunt.

No civilization other than that which is Christian, is worth seeking or possessing.

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

The measure of woman’s distaste for any part of her life lies not in the loudness of her lamentations (these are only an attempt to buy a martyr’s crown at a reduced price) but in her persistent pursuit of that occupation of which she never ceases to complain.

Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. We will one day understand what causes it, and then cease to call it divine. And so it is with everything in the universe.

When the saint ceases to seek after holiness, purity, righteousness, truth; when he ceases to pray, stops reading the Word and gives way to carnal appetites, then it is that Satan comes.

The moment a man falls into sin, divine life ceases to flow, and his life becomes one of helplessness.

Cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring light to all that is overcast, labour to make all one glow of beauty and never cease chiselling your statue.

When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.

Noble ideas, great sentiments have always existed and have always been transmitted, but wars have never ceased.

Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the ‘environmentalist’ view, as though it were a lobbying effort outside the mainstream of human activity, and to start calling it the real-world view.