Prussia Quotes

“Where some states have an army, the Prussian Army has a state.”
― Voltaire

“There has never been a 'war on drugs'! In our history we can only see an ongoing conflict amongst various drug users – and producers. In ancient Mexico the use of alcohol was punishable by death, while the ritualistic use of mescaline was highly worshipped. In 17th century Russia, tobacco smokers were threatened with mutilation or decapitation, alcohol was legal. In Prussia, coffee drinking was prohibited to the lower classes, the use of tobacco and alcohol was legal.”
― Sebastian Marincolo

“Can history disappear if it’s written in blood?”
― Ruta Sepetys, Salt to the Sea

“Besser ein Ende mit Schmerzen als Schmerzen ohne Ende”
― Ferdinand von Schill

“Let all brave Prussians follow me!”
― Kurt Christoph Graf von Schwerin

“...the weather was atrocious. A frightful storm burst upon us. We camped literally in water...To cap our woe, there was no means to light a single fire. We had to imagine dinner.”
― Leonce Patry, The Reality of War: A Memoir of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune, 1870-1871

“It is not the first time that Belgium has had to undergo a dangerous ordeal. But never has the situation been more serious than today! … Freedom, honor, the very existence of the fatherland is at stake.”
― Leopold II

“Palmerston likes to put his foot on their necks! Now, no statesman must triumph over an enemy that is not quite dead, because people forget a real loss, a real misfortune, but they won’t forget an insult. Napoleon made great mistakes that way; he hated Prussia, insulted it on all occasions, but still left it alive. The consequence was that in 1813 they rose to a man in Prussia, even children and women took arms, because they had been treated with contempt and insulted.”
― Leopold I

“Mussolini ha combattuto la massoneria, cioè il grande ordine d'oriente d'Italia, più o meno nei termini pagani del progetto del signor José Cabral. Non so se abbia perseguitato molta gente, né mi interessa saperlo. Quello che so con assoluta certezza è che il Grande Ordine d'Oriente d'Italia è uno di quei morti che godono di ottima salute, Permane, si riunisce, si è depurato, e sta ad aspettare; se ci sia qualcosa da aspettare è un'altra questione. Il piccone del duce può distruggere l'edificio del comunismo italiano, ma non è abbastanza potente per abbattere colonne simboliche, fuse in un metallo che proviene dall'alchimia.
Primo de Rivera ha combattuto la massoneria spagnola in modo più blando, secondo la sua indole fidalga. Anche qui so per certo che risultato ottenne: il grande sviluppo, numerico e politico, della massoneria in Spagna. Non so se alcuni fenomeni secondari, come ad esempio la caduta della monarchia, abbiano avuto qualche relazione con questo fatto.
Hitler, dopo essersi appoggiato alle tre grandi logge cristiane di Prussia, ha agito secondo il lodevole costume ariano di mordere la mano che gli aveva dato da mangiare. Ha lasciato in pace le altre grandi logge, quelle che non lo avevano sostenuto e che non erano cristiane, e tramite un certo Göring ha intimato alle prime tre di sciogliersi. Esse hanno detto di sì - ai Göring si dice sempre di sì - e hanno continuato a esistere. Per una coincidenza, è stato dopo l'adozione di questa misura che sono cominciati a sorgere in seno al partito nazista contrasti e altre difficoltà. Nella storia, come il signor José Cabral saprà bene, ci sono molte coincidenze del genere.”
― Fernando Pessoa, Pagine esoteriche

“Die Eröffnung der 750 Meter langen Siegesallee war ein vielsagendes Beispiel. Sie führte entlang einer der Verkehrsachsen der Hauptstadt und war von Denkmälern gesäumt. In einer langen Reihe halbrund angelegter Nischen mit Steinbalustraden standen auf hohen Podesten Statuen der Herrscher des Hauses Brandenburg, flankiert von den Büsten der Generale und hoher Staatsbeamter ihrer Herrschaft.
Bereits zum Zeitpunkt der Eröffnung wirkte dieses gigantische Projekt völlig unzeitgemäß. Um die Allee rechtzeitig zu vollenden, hatte Kaiser Wilhelm II. die Statuen bei Bildhauern von unterschiedlicher Kunstfertigkeit in Auftrag gegeben – sie waren allesamt konventionell und bombastisch, viele wirkten überdies plump und leblos. Das Ergebnis war eine kostspielige Demonstration von Prunk und Monotonie.
Mit der gewohnten Respektlosigkeit nannten die Berliner die Allee nur noch die »Puppenallee«, und unzählige zeitgenössische Karikaturen machten sich über den Größenwahn des Kaisers lustig. Die Krönung war eine Werbeanzeige aus dem Jahr 1903, die eine Siegesallee zeigte, gesäumt von riesigen Odol-Flaschen.”
― Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947

“Moltke wies zwar der Eisenbahn große Bedeutung zu, tatsächlich aber hätte seine aufwendige logistische Planung Preußen um ein Haar ins Verderben gestürzt, denn die Nachschubzüge trafen erst ein, als die Schlacht von Königgrätz bereits gewonnen war. In der Zwischenzeit hatten die preußischen Armeen, nicht viel anders als zu Zeiten Friedrichs des Großen, sich selbst versorgen oder für ihre Versorgung bezahlen müssen.”
― Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947

“The Prussian Junkers in league with reactionary Austria instituted their rule in Germany with the aim of converting the whole country into a barracks whose inmates would obey implicitly the orders of the drill-sergeant.”
― Mark Borisovich Mitin, Marx and Engels on reactionary Prussianism,

“The vast Lumpenproletariat, the product of the devastating Thirty Years’ War, the masses of morally depraved people, of beggars and tramps, accustomed to easy pickings—such was the reservoir from which the Prussian army recruited its soldiers.”
― Mark Borisovich Mitin, Marx and Engels on reactionary Prussianism,

“in the outcomes of the greatest movements in German history—the Reformation and the Peasant War, the events of the period of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, the Revolution of 1848 and the movement for the national unification of Germany. In all these major events the scales turned, in the long run, in favour of the reactionary classes.”
― Mark Borisovich Mitin, Marx and Engels on reactionary Prussianism,

“The history of Prussia is not a history of the genesis of a nation. Having arisen originally as a military colony of the Teutonic Order”
― Mark Borisovich Mitin, Marx and Engels on reactionary Prussianism,

“Prussia, which was not a German region, had long before been a scene of activity of the Knights of the Teutonic Order. For a hundred years these ‘cur- knights’, as Marx called them, waged a war of extermination against the native population, the Prussians.”
― Mark Borisovich Mitin, Marx and Engels on reactionary Prussianism,

“the troops were composed of peasant serfs and poor burghers who were forcibly compelled to enlist. Recruiting frequently degenerated into sheer manhunts which led to bloody clashes. The whole system of military training was of a piece with these acts of cruelty and violence.

‘A soldier should fear his officer more than his enemy.’

Such was the principle laid down by Frederick II.”
― Mark Borisovich Mitin, Marx and Engels on reactionary Prussianism,