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
Otto von Bismarck quotes about
The government should cultivate the view also among the propertyless classes of the population, those who are the most numerous and the least educated, that the state is not only an institution of necessity but also of welfare. By recognizable and direct advantages they must be led to look upon the state not as an agency devised solely for the protection of the better-situated classes of society but also as one serving their needs and interests.
Our German forefathers had a very kind religion. They believed that, after death, they would meet again all the good dogs that had been their companions in life. I wish I could believe that too.
History is simply a piece of paper covered with print: the main thing is to make history, not to write it.
I must protest that I would never seek foreign conflicts just to go over domestic difficulties; that would be frivolous. I was speaking of conflicts that we could not avoid, even though we do not seek them.
The Catholic priest, from the moment he becomes a priest, is a sworn officer of the pope.
To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.
A conquering army on the border will not be stopped by eloquence.
With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half.
He obtained from Congress the right to borrow from the people by selling to it the 'bonds' of States ... and the Government and the nation escaped the plots of the foreign financiers. They understood at once, that the United States would escape their grip. The death of Lincoln was resolved upon.
Your map of Africa is really quite nice. But my map of Africa lies in Europe. Here is Russia, and here... is France, and we're in the middle - that's my map of Africa.
I consider even a victorious war as an evil, from which statesmanship must endeavor to spare nations.
Better pointed bullets than pointed words.
I have found that nothing so deceives your adversaries as telling them the truth.
I am bored. The great things are done. The German Reich is made.