Bismarck Quotes

“History has seen many who claim to be deliverer and saviour of the people. They might come with force and violence and parade their might and splendour as conquerors. The pharaohs of Egypt, Sennacherib king of Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Darius of Persia, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Napoleon, Clive of India, Bismarck, the Kaiser, Hitler, Stalin. The story and scene is always the same. They claim to deliver the people from bondage and to establish justice, freedom and peace. They come in might, riding in splendour, dragging prisoners.”
― John Myer, John Myer: A Collection of his Sermons and Writing, #1

“Lincoln is properly remembered as a champion of democracy, but there was a good bit of Otto von Bismarck in him as well.”
― F.H. Buckley, American Secession: The Looming Threat of a National Breakup

“Bismarck expressed in these words the very essence of the political history of nations, the whole secret of statecraft. The constant predominance and triumph of force—that is its real essence, while everything that political language calls right is merely the consecration of a fact created by force. Clearly, the masses thirsting for liberation cannot expect it from the theoretical triumph of abstract right; they must conquer freedom by force, and to do so they must organize their own spontaneous forces outside of the state and against it.”
― Mikhail Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy

“[...] darin liegt wirklich der Hauptfehler dieses Man­nes [Bismarcks], daß er, was ihm als die günstigsten Bedingungen für die Entfaltung seiner persönlichen Thatkraft erschien, zu den Bedingungen seiner politischen Schöpfungen gemacht hat.

Die preussische Intelligenz und ihre Grenzen, München, 1874”
― Constantin Frantz

“Bismarck's generals needed little persuasion of their own superiority. They were confident or their troops. For four years, since Sadowa, they had been rearing, preparing, planning. As generals always did, they wanted more time. But when time ran out, they would be ready.”
― David Ball, Empires of Sand by David Ball