Otto von Bismarck

Politics is not an exact science... but an art.

Prince Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg (1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), German aristocrat and statesman; Prime Minister of Prussia (1862–1890), First Chancellor of Germany (1871–1890); he is nicknamed the Iron Chancellor and is noted for the laconicity of his statements.

Quotes

• Nicht durch Reden und Majoritätsbeschlüsse werden die großen Fragen der Zeit entschieden — das ist der große Fehler von 1848 und 1849 gewesen — sondern durch Eisen und Blut.
  • 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.
  • Speech to the Prussian Diet (30 September 1862). After some objections to his initial speech he returned to the podium and declared: "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."
  • Variant translations: It is not by speeches and majority vote that the great questions of our time will be decided -- as that was error of 1848 and 1849 -- but rather by iron and blood.
    The great questions of the time are not decided by speeches and majority decisions — that was the error of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and blood.
    The great issues of the day are not decided through speeches and majority resolutions — that was the great error of 1848 and 1849 — but through blood and iron.
    The great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and the resolutions of majorities — that was the great mistake from 1848 to 1849 — but by blood and iron.
    The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions ... but by iron and blood.

• So clobbeth the Poles so that they despair; they have my deepest sympathy for their situation, but, if we want to exist, we have no choice but to wipe them out ('ausrotten'); the wolf cannot help it that he was created by God the way he is, but one shoots him yet, if one can.
  • Letter to his sister Malwine (March 1861)

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

• A conquering army on the border will not be stopped by eloquence.
  • Speech to North German Reichstag (24 September 1867)

• Die Politik ist keine exakte Wissenschaft.
  • Politics is not an exact science.
  • Speech to Prussian upper house (18 December 1863)
  • Variant: Die Politik ist keine Wissenschaft, wie viele der Herren Proffessoren sich einbilden, sondern eine Kunst.
    • Politics is not a science, as the professors are apt to suppose. It is an art.
      • Expression in the Reichstag (1884), as quoted in The Quote Verifier : Who Said What, Where, and When (2006) by Ralph Keyes.

• Die Politik ist die Kunst des Möglichen.
  • Politics is the art of the possible.
  • Remark to Meyer von Waldeck, 11 August 1867. Quoted in Heinz Amelung, Bismarck-Worte, 1918; as reported in The Yale Book of Quotations, ed. Fred R. Shapiro, Yale University Press, 2006. This is widely attributed to Bismarck but there is no firsthand account of his exact words, as discussed in Ralph Keyes, The Quote Verifier, Macmillan, 2006.

• Setzen wir Deutschland, so zu sagen, in den Sattel! Reiten wird es schon können.
  • Let us lift Germany, so to speak, into the saddle. It will certainly be able to ride.
  • Speech to Parliament of Confederation (1867)

• He who has his thumb on the purse has the power.
  • Speech to North German Reichstag (21 May 1869)

• Wir Deutsche fürchten Gott, aber sonst nichts in der Welt - und die Gottesfurcht ist es schon, die uns den Frieden lieben und pflegen lässt.
  • We Germans fear God, but nothing else in the world; and it is the fear of God, which lets us love and foster peace.
  • Speech to the Reichstag (6 February 1888) reichstagsprotokolle.de 1887/88,2 p. 733 (D)

• 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.
  • Conversation with a colonial enthusiast revealing his disapproval of Colonialism. (1888)

• Der alte Jude, das ist der Mann.
  • The old Jew, he is the man.
  • A conversation in 1879 on who was the centre of gravity at the Congress of Berlin, referring to Benjamin Disraeli, as quoted in Seven Great Statesmen in the Warfare of Humanity with Unreason (1912) by Andrew Dickson White, p. 482

• They treat me like a fox, a cunning fellow of the first rank. But the truth is that with a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and when I have to do with a pirate, I try to be a pirate and a half.
  • As quoted in Disraeli, Gladstone, and the Eastern Question : A Study in Diplomacy and Party Politics (1935) by Robert William Seton-Watson, p. 224; Here "Schlaukopf" is the word translated as "cunning fellow", which is also translated elsewhere as "clever dick" or "smart aleck."
  • Variants:
  • With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half.
    • As quoted in 20,000 Quips & Quotes‎ (1968) by Evan Esar, p. 72
  • They treat me like a fox, a cunning fellow of the first rank. But the truth is that with a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and when I have to deal with a pirate, I try to be a pirate and a half.
    • As quoted in Prime Minister Gyula Andrássy's influence on Habsburg foreign policy during the Franco-German War of 1870-1871 (1979) by János Decsy, p. 21
• If there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans.
  • As quoted by Winston Churchill in 'Why Should We Fear for our Future?,' his Final Review of the War, an address given on August 16, 1945 in the House of Commons.

Disputed

• Preventive war is like committing suicide for fear of death.
  • Quoted as a remark of Bismark, but without quotation marks, in Thinking About the Unthinkable in the 1980s (1984) by Herman Kahn, p. 136, this is possibly a paraphrase — such a statement has also been referenced in Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, Vol. 3, (1995) by Hans-Ulrich Wehler, p. 879: Wer einen Präventivkrieg gegen das riesige Zarenreich vom Zaun breche, begehe, mokierte er sich, nur zu leicht «Selbstmord aus Furcht vor dem Tod» [He, who would start a preventive war against the gigantic Czarist empire on its frontiers, commits, mocked he, simply chooses "suicide out of fear of death".]

Misattributed

• There is a special providence for drunkards, fools, and the United States of America.
  • This saying appears as early as 1849 in the form “the special providence over the United States and little children”, attributed to Abbé Correa. There is no good evidence that Bismarck ever repeated it. See talk page for more details.

• Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.
  • Though similar remarks are often attributed to Bismarck, this is the earliest known quote regarding laws and sausages, and is attributed to John Godfrey Saxe University Chronicle. University of Michigan (27 March 1869) books.google.de and "Quote... Misquote" by Fred R. Shapiro in The New York Times (21 July 2008); according to Shapiro's research, such remarks only began to be attributed to Bismarck in the 1930s.
  • Variants often attributed to Bismarck:
  • If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made.
  • Laws are like sausages — it is best not to see them being made.
  • Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made.
  • Laws are like sausages. You should never see them made.
  • Laws are like sausages. You should never watch them being made.
  • Law and sausage are two things you do not want to see being made.
  • No one should see how laws or sausages are made.
  • To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.
  • The making of laws like the making of sausages, is not a pretty sight.
  • Je weniger die Leute darüber wissen, wie Würste und Gesetze gemacht werden, desto besser schlafen sie nachts.
    • The less the people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they sleep in the night.
      • (No citation exists for where this German phrase or this translation originated).

External links

• Military related Bismarck quotes
• Brief biography
• Brief biography at Ohio University
• Bismarck and Social Security
• Memoirs (excerpts)