Otto von Bismarck

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

Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.

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

A statesman must wait until he hears the steps of God sounding through events, then leap up and grasp the hem of His garment.

Politics is the art of the next best.

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

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war.

The main thing is to make history, not to write it.

Politics is the art of the possible.

There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America.

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

With a gentleman I am always a gentleman and a half, and with a fraud I try to be a fraud and a half.

To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making.