History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
There are two levers for moving men – interest and fear.
A man cannot become an atheist merely by wishing it.
A throne is only a bench covered with velvet.
He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.
Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.
Men take only their needs into consideration – never their abilities.
Ambition never is in a greater hurry that I; it merely keeps pace with circumstances and with my general way of thinking.
When I give a minister an order, I leave it to him to find the means to carry it out.
Nothing makes the future look so rosy as to contemplate it through a glass of Chambertin.
England is a nation of shopkeepers.
Strong coffee, much strong coffee, is what awakens me. Coffee gives me warmth, waking, an unusual force and a pain that is not without very great pleasure.
Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.
A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.
Women are nothing but machines for producing children.
The more I study the world, the more I am convinced of the inability of brute force to create anything durable.
If fifty thousand men were to die for the good of the State, I certainly would weep for them, but political necessity comes before everything else.
I may be accused or rashness, but not sluggishness.
Greatness be nothing unless it be lasting.
If the Earth were a single state, Istanbul would be its capital.