Otto von Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg, known as Otto von Bismarck, was a conservative Prussian statesman who dominated German and European affairs from the 1860s until 1890. In the 1860s he engineered a series of wars that unified the German states, significantly and deliberately excluding Austria, into a powerful German Empire under Prussian leadership. With that accomplished by 1871 he skillfully used balance of power diplomacy to preserve German hegemony in a Europe which, despite many disputes...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth1 April 1815
CitySchonhausen, Germany
CountryGermany
I do not regard the procuring of peace as a matter in which we should play the role of arbiter between different opinions ... more that of an honest broker who really wants to press the business forward.
All treaties between great states cease to be binding when they come in conflict with the struggle for existence.
He who has his thumb on the purse has the power.
I am bored. The great things are done. The German Reich is made.
I am accustomed to pay men back in their own coin.
Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong: it is a geographical expression.
You can do everything with bayonets, but you are not able to sit on them
There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America.
Hounds follow those who feed them.
A generation that has taken a beating is always followed by a generation that deals one.
I have never lived on principles. When I have had to act, I never first asked myself on what principles I was going to act, but I went at it and did what I thought fit. I have often reproached myself for my want of principle.
A Bavarian is half-way between an Austrian and a human being.
I consider even a victorious war as an evil, from which statesmanship must endeavor to spare nations.
Better pointed bullets than pointed words.