Bismarck

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

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

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

A conquering army is always in the right.

The great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and resolutions of majorities, but by iron and blood.

Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.

The Balkans are not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.

Universal suffrage is the dictatorship of the stable-boy.

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

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

The strong are strongest when they are alone.

Free trade is the weapon of the strong.

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

The art of statesmanship is to steer a course through the rapids, not to create them.

He who has once been a minister never quite ceases to be one.

The most important thing for a statesman is to make sure that he is not indispensable.

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.

I have always found the word 'Europe' on the lips of those politicians who wanted something from other powers that they dared not demand in their own name.

One should not kick against the pricks.

The greatest danger to Germany is a war on two fronts.