Otto Von Bismarck Quotes

Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.

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

Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others.

God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.

One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans (1888).

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

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

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

Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death.

Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made.

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

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

The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.

Faust complained about having two souls in his breast, but I harbor a whole crowd of them and they quarrel. It is like being in a republic.

man cannot control the current of events. he can only float with them and steer

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

Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others experience.

Crowned heads, wealth and privilege may well tremble should ever again the Black and Red unite!" -after the split between Anarchists and Marxists in 1872

Hounds follow those who feed them.

Politics are not a science based on logic; they are the capacity of always choosing at each instant, in constantly changing situations, the least harmful, the most useful.

[Otto von Bismarck] only considered the interests of his own country - always the worst offense that a statesman can commit in the eyes of foreigners.

the main thing is to make history not to write it

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

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.

We live in a wondrous time, in which the strong is weak because of his scruples and the weak grows strong because of his audacity.

الحياة أشبه بالتواجد عند طبيب الأسنان. فأنت تعتقد دائما أن الأسوأ هو الذي لا يزال في طريقه إليك، رغم أنه يكون قد انتهى بالفعل.

Politics ruins the character

Otto von Bismarck, the first chancellor of unified Germany, once warned the world to watch out for the German people. With a good leader, they were the greatest nation on Earth. With a bad leader, they were monsters.

Life is like being at the dentist. You always think that the worst is still to come, and yet it is over already.

Not by speeches and votes of the majority, are the great questions of the time decided — that was the error of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and blood.

If there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans.

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

I have a burden on my soul. During my long life, I did not make anyone happy, neither my friends, nor my family, nor even myself. I have done many evil things...I was the cause of the beginning of three big wars. About 800,000 people were killed because of me on the battlefields., and their mothers, brothers, and widows cried for them. And now this stands between me and God.

The Balkans aren't worth the life of a single Pomeranian grenadier.

Politics is not an exact science.

Politics is the art of the possible,the science of the relative.

Otto von Bismarck quipped, "Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.

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

We Americans are used to viewing war from a distance—the privilege of living, as Chancellor Otto von Bismarck once said, with less powerful neighbors to the north and south, and nothing to the east and west but fish. Even the terrible attack on our own Pearl Harbor came thousands of miles away.

Political judgment is the ability to hear the distant hoofbeats of the horse of history.

In order to retain a certain respect for sausages and laws, one must not see them being made.

What we learn from history is that no one learns from history

The life of a man is like a game of chess, which he plays according to his art.

Hegelianism’ was not the stuff that popular identities are made of. The master’s work was notoriously difficult to read, let alone understand. Richard Wagner and Otto von Bismarck were among those who attempted without success to make sense of him.

[Government]is cancerous in head and limbs;only its belly is sound, and the laws it excretes are the most strightforward shit in the world.

The German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, was one of the few authentic geniuses among nineteenth-century statesmen.

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.’1 Chancellor Otto von Bismarck

Woe to the leader whose arguments at the end of a war are not as plausible as they were at the beginning.

The bureaucracy is what we all suffer from.

Verfallen wir nicht in den Fehler, bei jedem Andersmeinenden entweder an seinem Verständnis oder an seinem guten Willen zu zweifeln.

Нечленораздельные звуки - это не аргументы!

Lord takes care of babes, fools, and the United States.

Ludzie najbardziej kłamią: po polowaniu, w czasie wojny i przed wyborami.

a rich society must care for the poor

A Bavarian is mixture between an Austrian and a human being." -Otto von Bismarck  

the words of Otto von Bismarck could be applied: “Life is like being at the dentist. You always think that the worst is still to come, and yet it is over already.

If you value national health services, pension funds and free schools, you need to thank Marx and Lenin (and Otto von Bismarck) far more than Hong Xiuquan or the Mahdi.

Have you ever wondered where the idea of retirement at the age of 65 came from? I'll tell you where: Otto von Bismarck, the president of Prussia, in 1889. Actually, Bismarck's government: At the time, the life expectancy of the average Prussian was about 45. Today, so many are living well into their 80s and 90s that the same promise might well bankrupt the federal government within the next generation.

That which is imposing here on earth has always something of the quality of the fallen angel who is beautiful but without peace, great in his conceptions and exertions but without succes, proud and lonely.

That which is imposing here on earth . . . has always something of the quality of the fallen angel who is beautiful but without peace, great in his conceptions and exertions but without success, proud and lonely.

Otto von Bismarck, the first chancellor of unified Germany, once warned the world to watch out for the German people. With a good leader, they were the greatest nation on Earth. With a bad leader, they were monsters. For the guards who persecuted us, discipline was more important than common sense. If a soldier is told to march, they will march. If they are told to shoot a man in the back, they will do it, and never question if it is right or wrong. The Germans made a religion of logic, and it turned them into murderers.

The position of Prussia in Germany will not be determined by its liberalism but by its power ..

Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided...but by iron and blood.

The greatness of a man can be measured by his intelligence minus his vanity

Nur ein Idiot glaubt, aus eigenen Erfahrungen zu lernen. Ich ziehe es vor, aus den Erfahrungen anderer zu lernen, um von vorneherein eigene Fehler zu vermeiden.

If this political business teaches you one thing, it is that you can be as wise as the wise men of this world, and yet you always wander into the next minute like a child into the dark.

Cuando, a finales del siglo XIX, Otto von Bismarck estableció por primera vez en la historia las pensiones y la seguridad social estatales, su objetivo principal era asegurarse la lealtad de los ciudadanos, no aumentar su calidad de vida. Uno luchaba por su país cuando tenía dieciocho años y pagaba sus impuestos cuando tenía cuarenta, porque contaba con que el Estado se haría cargo de él cuando tuviera setenta.[30]

Even the welfare system was originally planned in the interest of the nation rather than of needy individuals. When Otto von Bismarck pioneered state pensions and social security in late nineteenth-century Germany, his chief aim was to ensure the loyalty of the citizens rather than to increase their well-being. You fought for your country when you were eighteen, and paid your taxes when you were forty, because you counted on the state to take care of you when you were seventy.30

Countries measured their success by the size of their territory, the increase in their population and the growth of their GDP – not by the happiness of their citizens. Industrialised nations such as Germany, France and Japan established gigantic systems of education, health and welfare, yet these systems were aimed to strengthen the nation rather than ensure individual well-being. Schools were founded to produce skilful and obedient citizens who would serve the nation loyally. At eighteen, youths needed to be not only patriotic but also literate, so that they could read the brigadier’s order of the day and draw up tomorrow’s battle plans. They had to know mathematics in order to calculate the shell’s trajectory or crack the enemy’s secret code. They needed a reasonable command of electrics, mechanics and medicine in order to operate wireless sets, drive tanks and take care of wounded comrades. When they left the army they were expected to serve the nation as clerks, teachers and engineers, building a modern economy and paying lots of taxes. The same went for the health system. At the end of the nineteenth century countries such as France, Germany and Japan began providing free health care for the masses. They financed vaccinations for infants, balanced diets for children and physical education for teenagers. They drained festering swamps, exterminated mosquitoes and built centralised sewage systems. The aim wasn’t to make people happy, but to make the nation stronger. The country needed sturdy soldiers and workers, healthy women who would give birth to more soldiers and workers, and bureaucrats who came to the office punctually at 8 a.m. instead of lying sick at home. Even the welfare system was originally planned in the interest of the nation rather than of needy individuals. When Otto von Bismarck pioneered state pensions and social security in late nineteenth-century Germany, his chief aim was to ensure the loyalty of the citizens rather than to increase their well-being. You fought for your country when you were eighteen, and paid your taxes when you were forty, because you counted on the state to take care of you when you were seventy.30 In 1776 the Founding Fathers of the United States established the right to the pursuit of happiness as one of three unalienable human rights, alongside the right to life and the right to liberty. It’s important to note, however, that the American Declaration of Independence guaranteed the right to the pursuit of happiness, not the right to happiness itself. Crucially, Thomas Jefferson did not make the state responsible for its citizens’ happiness. Rather, he sought only to limit the power of the state.

Otto von Bismarck knew this. He was Kaiser Wilhelm I’s strategist. Bismarck did a lot of complicated diplomatic maneuvering from 1870-90 to make sure Germany always had two major powers as allies: Russia and Austria-Hungary. Together, the three powers were the Three Emperors’ League.

Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others.” -Otto von Bismarck

Divorce was legalized in Maryland and Holland adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1701. On that same date the German Hohenzollern royal family was developed from former emperors, kings, princes who were descended of the Germanic kingdoms scattered throughout central Europe. On April 9, 1865, in America, General Robert E. Lee of the Confederate States of America, ended the Civil War by surrendering to General Ulysses S. Grant, Commander of the United States Forces. It wasn’t even a week later, when on April 14th, Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, while watching “Our American Cousin” at the Ford Theater. The following day, as Lincoln lay dying in Washington, D.C., Otto Von Bismarck, a conservative Prussian statesman was elevated to the rank of Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen in Europe. During the second half of the 19th century as Bismarck ran German and dominated European history, Cuba fought for its independence from Spain. On April 25, 1898, at the start of the Industrial Revolution, the United States declared war against Spain. The century ended with turmoil in Europe, a free Cuba and the United States as the new world power!

This policy, viewed positively by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck as a way to shift the focus outside of Europe, was backed by Jules Ferry. Ferry supported what he called “the duty to civilize inferior races.” This led to a French expansion both in North Africa with the establishment of a protectorate in Tunis (1881); Africa, with the occupation of Madagascar and the expansion of France’s possession in Congo and Niger, and more importantly the development of the French “Indochine” in present-day Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

No nation influenced American thinking more profoundly than Germany, W.E.B. DuBois, Charles Beard, Walter Weyl, Richard Ely, Richard Ely, Nicholas Murray Butler, and countless other founders of modern American liberalism were among the nine thousand Americans who studied in German universities during the nineteenth century. When the American Economic Association was formed, five of the six first officers had studied in Germany. At least twenty of its first twenty-six presidents had as well. In 1906 a professor at Yale polled the top 116 economists and social scientists in America; more than half had studied in Germany for at least a year. By their own testimony, these intellectuals felt "liberated" by the experience of studying in an intellectual environment predicated on the assumption that experts could mold society like clay. No European statesman loomed larger in the minds and hearts of American progressives than Otto von Bismarck. As inconvenient as it may be for those who have been taught "the continuity between Bismarck and Hitler", writes Eric Goldman, Bismarck's Germany was "a catalytic of American progressive thought". Bismarck's "top-down socialism", which delivered the eight-hour workday, healthcare, social insurance, and the like, was the gold standard for enlightened social policy. "Give the working-man the right to work as long as he is healthy; assure him care when he is sick; assure him maintenance when he is old", he famously told the Reichstag in 1862. Bismarck was the original "Third Way" figure who triangulated between both ends of the ideological spectrum. "A government must not waver once it has chosen its course. It must not look to the left or right but go forward", he proclaimed. Teddy Roosevelt's 1912 national Progressive Party platform conspicuously borrowed from the Prussian model. Twenty-five years earlier, the political scientist Woodrow Wilson wrote that Bismarck's welfare state was an "admirable system . . . the most studied and most nearly perfected" in the world.

People are born as revolutionaries. The accident of life decides whether one becomes a Red or a White revolutionary. [Writing about Otto von Bismarck.]

Otto von Bismarck met een klaver en lieveheersbeestje.

In both cases his love of combat and delight in battles were a great support to me in carrying out the policy I regarded as necessary, in opposition to the intelligible and justifiable aversion in a most influential quarter. It proved inconvenient to me in 1867, in the Luxemburg question, and in 1 875 and afterwards on the question whether it was desirable, as regards a war which we should probably have to face sooner or later, to bring it on anticipando before the adversary could improve his preparations. I have always opposed the theory which says ' Yes'; not only at the Luxemburg period, but likewise subsequently for twenty years, in the conviction that even victorious wars cannot be justified unless they are forced upon one, and that one cannot see the cards of Providence far enough ahead to anticipate historical development according to one's own calculation.

In looking back upon this situation, we have lamentable proof of the degree of dishonesty and cosmopolitanism to which political parties with us attained when actuated by party hatred. Something similar may have happened elsewhere; but I know of no other country where the universal national feeling and love for the whole Fatherland offered so little resistance to the excesses of party passion as with us.

I took it as assured that war with France would necessarily have to be waged on the road to our further national development, for our development at home as well as the extension beyond the Main, and that we must keep this eventuality in sight in all our domestic as well as in our foreign relations.

All these considerations, conscious and unconscious, strengthened my opinion that war could be avoided only at the cost of the honour of Prussia and of the national confidence in it. Under this conviction I made use of the royal authorisation communicated to me through Abeken, to publish the contents of the telegram; and in the presence of my two guests I reduced the telegram by striking out words, but without adding or altering, to the following form : `After the news of the renunciation of the hereditary Prince of Hohenzollern had been officially communicated to the imperial government of France by the royal government of Spain, the French ambassador at Ems further demanded of his Majesty the King that he would authorise him to telegraph to Paris that his Majesty the King bound himself for all future time never again to give his consent if the Hohenzollerns should renew their candidature.

The letter, written in the Emperor's delicate hand, over many closely written pages, spun out at great length and in a style more declamatory than his pen possessed, suggested Hamlet's words : Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them ?

Criticism can only be exercised through the medium of a free press and parliaments in the modern sense of the term. Both correctives may easily weaken, and finally lose their efficacy if they abuse their powers. To avert this is one of the tasks of a conservative policy, which cannot be accomplished without a struggle with parliament and press.

Moreover, I still hold that the principle of universal suffrage is a just one, not only in theory but also in practice, provided always that voting be not secret, for secrecy is a quality that is indeed incompatible with the best characteristics of German blood.

The Jewish national movement that emerged in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century and culminated in the 1880s—the concept of the distinctiveness of Jews as a people and a nation—developed in an atmosphere of nationalist idealism that had been spreading throughout Europe since 1848. These expressions of European nationalism—which manifested in such phenomena as the unification of Germany under Otto von Bismarck, the reunification of Italy (the Risorgimento) under Giuseppe Garibaldi, and the rise of Slavic nationalism—stressed the unity of peoples and nations and the uniqueness of their cultural identities. The elements that distinguished one people from another had become more important than the elements that united them as human beings.

God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the USA.

When I have laid bait for deer, I don’t shoot at the first doe that comes to sniff, but wait until the whole herd has gathered round. Otto von Bismarck, 1815–1898

When I have laid bait for deer, I don’t shoot at the first doe that comes to sniff, but wait until the whole herd has gathered round. Otto von Bismarck, 1815-1898

Otto von Bismarck estableció por primera vez en la historia las pensiones y la seguridad social estatales, su objetivo principal era asegurarse la lealtad de los ciudadanos, no aumentar su calidad de vida.

As German chancellor Otto Von Bismarck is once reputed to have said, “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.” The events in the last half of 1814 had proved that adage right.

There is a special Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America.” - Otto Von Bismarck

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

I have always found the word ‘Europe’ in the mouths of those politicians who wanted from other powers something they did not dare to demand in their own name. Otto von Bismarck We

The three main takeaways you should learn –   1. You should be able to identify Classical and Romantic Play in other people, and their natural motivations. It has immense predictive power.   2. You should be able to identify what situations you are playing Romantically, and what situations you are playing Classically. You should always know which is which.   3. If you’re playing Romantically, you absolutely must learn when to stop and shift gears to Classical. Contrast George Washington, Otto von Bismarck, Mustafa Kemal, Deng Xiaoping, and Tokugawa Ieyasu with Hideyoshi Toyotomi, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, Alexander of Macedon, etc. Choosing “Romantic Play indefinitely” has, historically, a very predictable outcome.   Please study this thoroughly. This concept is incredibly useful, and potentially life-changing.

Baron Otto von Bismarck-Schönhausen had just returned from St. Petersburg, where he had been Prussian ambassador. He was a conservative of the extreme type, hated and feared by the liberal and national party no less than Metternich. But no man better than he comprehended the policy of Austria, and all the complicated threads composing

Any fool can learn from his mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.   —OTTO VON BISMARCK

Ironically, opponents of basic income on the grounds that it would lead to a dismantling of the welfare state tend to support some variant of social insurance. They should be reminded that social insurance was first introduced by someone vehemently opposed to the political ideology they purport to represent. Otto von Bismarck prohibited socialists and exiled their leaders from Prussian cities. So those criticizing basic income because, in their albeit incorrect view, it is advocated by enemies of socialism should logically be opposed to the fundamental base of old welfare states.

The division of the United States into federations of equal force was decided long before the Civil War by the high financial powers of Europe. These bankers were afraid that the United States, if they remained in one block and as one nation, would attain economic and financial independence, which would upset their financial domination over the world. The voice of the Rothschilds prevailed… Therefore they sent their emissaries into the field to exploit the question of slavery and to open an abyss between the two sections of the Union." - German chancellor Otto von Bismarck

Hammer the Poles until they despair of living [...] I have all the sympathy in the world for their situation, but if we want to exist we have no choice but to wipe them out: wolves are only what God made them, but we shoot them all the same when we can get at them.

To borrow Otto von Bismarck’s famous phrase, all great powers are traveling on the “stream of Time,” which they can neither control nor direct, but which they can navigate with skill and experience. Espionage is an acute example of the interaction between the flow of history and experience—human actors can help steer the stream of Time, when it is acted upon.

... I was really rude. Except one time I made a great joke about Bismarck and she laughed, and I laughed, and it was like we were in our own private world. We weren't, though, we were in one of her boyfriends' cars, and he wasn't happy about it." "Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian Chancellor of the German Empire?" "Yes, he created the first welfare state in modern history. The joke wasn't to do with that, though, it was something to do with the Crimean War and cry me a river.