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
This policy cannot succeed through speeches, and shooting-matches, and songs; it can only be carried out through blood and iron.
The position of Prussia in Germany will not be determined by its liberalism but by its power ... Prussia must concentrate its strength and hold it for the favorable moment, which has already come and gone several times. Since the treaties of Vienna, our frontiers have been ill-designed for a healthy body politic. Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided - that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849 - but by iron and blood (Eisen und Blut).
A government must not waiver once it has chosen it's course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward.
Politics is the art of the next best.
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.
There are two things civilized Man should never see being made: Sausages and Laws.
Politics ruins the character.
War should only be used for a policy worth its sacrifices.
Politics is not an exact science.
Not even the King himself has the right to subordinate the interests of his country to his own feelings of love or hatred towards strangers; he is, however, responsible towards God and not to me if he does so, and therefore on this point I am silent.
Politics is no exact science.
Nothing should be left to an invaded people except their eyes for weeping.
Politics is not a science, as the professors are apt to suppose. It is an art.
The Balkans arent worth the life of a single Pomeranian grenadier.