Statesman Quotes

Adolf Hitler

Winston Churchill

Otto von Bismarck

Benito Mussolini

Pericles

Jawaharlal Nehru

Josip Broz Tito

I am bored; the great things are done. The German Reich is made.

Otto von Bismarck

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

Cardinal Richelieu

In Great Britain, governments often change their policies without changing their men. In France, they usually change their men without changing their policy.

Winston Churchill

Since we are not in the League of Nations in any case, we do not devote our attention to reflecting on its internal reforms.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all of the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

Frederick Douglass

If we believe a thing to be bad, and if we have a right to prevent it, it is our duty to try to prevent it and to damn the consequences.

No nation ever yet found any inconvenience from too close an inspection into the conduct of its officers, but many have been brought to ruin and reduced to slavery by suffering gradual impositions and abuses.

Edward Livingston

The Empire of China is an old, crazy, first-rate Man of War, which a fortunate succession of able and vigilant officers have contrived to keep afloat for these hundred and fifty years past, and to overawe their neighbours merely by her bulk and appearance. But whenever an insufficient man happens to have the command on deck, adieu to the discipline and safety of the ship. She may, perhaps, not sink outright; she may drift some time as a wreck, and will then be dashed to pieces on the shore; but she can never be rebuilt on the old bottom.

George Macartney

It is the flag just as much of the man who was naturalized yesterday as of the man whose people have been here many generations.

Henry Cabot Lodge

To say that a bad government must be established for fear of anarchy is really saying that we should kill ourselves for fear of dying.

Richard Henry Lee

The boldness of impiety is often mistaken for knowledge, founded on an independent spirit, and thereby saps the necessary defense of a simple innocence and unsuspecting modesty.

It is hard to say which is the greatest fool: he who tells the whole truth, or he who tells no truth at all. Character is as necessary in business as in trade. No man can deceive often in either.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

If any man will draw up his case, and put his name at the foot of the first page, I will give him an immediate reply. Where he compels me to turn over the sheet, he must wait my leisure.

John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich

Cadres should be capable of climbing upward and going downward, advancing and retreating, serving as officials and acting as ordinary citizens.

"It is more than a crime; it is a political fault," —words which I record, because they have been repeated and attributed to others.

I think Scowcroft has done us all a great favor by his article saying don't do it. My own personal view is that basically General Scowcroft is correct. Unless the president can make a very compelling case that Saddam Hussein has his finger on a weapon of mass destruction and is about ready to use it, I do not think that now is the time to go to war against Saddam Hussein.

Lawrence Eagleburger

I simply want tomorrow to be better than today. I want Palestine to be independent and sovereign... Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.

Of France:

A nation of monkeys with the throat of parrots.

Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès

I have always perceived, or nearly so, the defects of those I love; and such defects are the only ones I can see clearly. But for the want of archangels, we must love imperfect creatures.

Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau

The Dutch Company, actuated solely by the spirit of gain, and viewing their [Javan] subjects, with less regard or consideration than a West India planter formerly viewed a gang upon his estate, because the latter had paid the purchase money of human property, which the other had not, employed all the existing machinery of despotism to squeeze from the people their utmost mite of contribution, the last dregs of their labor, and thus aggravated the evils of a capricious and semi-barbarous Government, by working it with all the practised ingenuity of politicians, and all the monopolizing selfishness of traders.

Stamford Raffles

A Pack of Spanish Lies sent abroad in the world, first printed in the Spanish tongue, and translated out of the original. Now ripped up, unfolded and by just examination condemned, as containing false, corrupt and detestable wares worthy to be damned and burned.

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley

Oppression makes wise men mad; but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools.

When stars are in the quiet skies, Then most I pine for thee; Bend on me then thy tender eyes, As stars look on the sea.

Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton

All these threatening storms, which, like impregnate Clouds, hover o'er our heads, will (when they once are grasp'd but by the eye of reason) melt into fruitful showers of blessings on the people.

George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham

We are watching the Germans closely; we are not forgetting what they did to us during the war.

Anastas Mikoyan