Quotes by Statesmen

The virtue of adversity is fortitude which in mortals is the heroical virtue.
Francis Bacon
War never leaves where it found a nation.
Edmund Burke
The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
I am the spirit that negates.And rightly so, for all that comes to beDeserves to perish wretchedly;'Twere better nothing would begin.Thus everything that that your terms, sin,Destruction, evil represent—That is my proper element.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Oh, wearisome condition of humanity,Born under one law, to another bound;Vainly begot, and yet forbidden vanity,Created sick, commanded to be sound.
Fulke Greville
Courage is a scorner of things which inspire fear.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.
Otto von Bismarck
Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.
Philip Dormer Stanhope
Then indecision brings its own delays, And days are lost lamenting over lost days. Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute; What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it; Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Battle of Normandy was won on the beaches of Dieppe
Louis Mountbatten
God never wrought miracle to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it. It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.
Francis Bacon
There is always room at the top.
Daniel Webster
A man's as miserable as he thinks he is.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
You cannot plan the future by the past.
Edmund Burke
Each one sees what he carries in his heart.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I've often heard it said, a preacherMight learn, with a comedian for a teacher.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In this world one is seldom reduced to make a selection between two alternatives. There are as many varieties of conduct and opinion as there are turns of feature between an aquiline nose and a flat one.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Art is long, life short, judgment difficult, opportunity transient. To act is easy, to think is hard; to act according to our thought is troublesome.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
There is not a single outward mark of courtesy that does not have a deep moral basis.
Goethe
The best-loved man or maid in the town would perish with anguish could they hear all that their friends say in the course of a day.
John Hay
On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nothing is easier than self-deceit.For what every man wishes,that he also believes to be true.
Demosthenes
Style is the dress of thoughts.
Lord Chesterfield
No living creature is naturally greedy, except from fear of want - or in the case of human beings, from vanity, the notion that you're better than people if you can display more superfluous property than they can.
Thomas More
Mozart is the human incarnation of the divine force of creation.
Goethe
Failure changes for the better success for the worse.
Seneca
Peace at home, peace in the world.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Make all good men your well-wishers and then in the years' steady sifting some of them will turn into friends.
John Hay
Vote for the man who promises least he'll be the least disappointing.
Bernard Baruch
The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavour to efface them.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.
Francis Bacon
My father, my father, and dost thou not hearThe words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear?'Be calm, dearest child, 'tis thy fancy deceives;Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nay, the same Solomon the king, although he excelled in the glory of treasure and magnificent buildings, of shipping and navigation, of service and attendance, of fame and renown, and the like, yet he maketh no claim to any of those glories, but only to the glory of inquisition of truth; for so he saith expressly, "The glory of God is to conceal a thing, but the glory of the king is to find it out;" as if, according to the innocent play of children, the Divine Majesty took delight to hide His works, to the end to have them found out; and as if kings could not obtain a greater honour than to be God's playfellows in that game
Francis Bacon
Pain is slight if opinion has added nothing to it; ... in thinking it slight, you will make it slight. Everything depends on opinion. It is according to opinion that we suffer. A man is as wretched as he has convinced himself that he is.
Seneca
I have learned to be a friend to myself Great improvement this indeed Such a one can never be said to be alone for know that he who is a friend to himself is a friend to all mankind
Seneca
There is nothing so powerful as truth - and often nothing so strange.
Daniel Webster
Nūllum magnum ingenium sine mixtūrā dēmentiae fuitNo great talent without an element of madness
Seneca
Grant me one hour on love’s most sacred shoresTo clasp the bosom that my soul adores,Lie heart to heart and merge my soul with yours.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
For many men the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles it only changes them.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
So let those people go on weeping and wailing whose self-indulgent minds have been weakened by long prosperity, let them collapse at the threat of the most trivial injuries; but let those who have spent all their years suffering disasters endure the worst afflictions with a brave and resolute staunchness. Everlasting misfortune does have one blessing, that it ends up by toughening those whom it constantly afflicts.
Seneca
It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing.
Seneca
man's sense is falsely asserted to be the standard of things; on the contrary, all the perceptions both of the senses and the mind bear reference to man and not to the Universe, and the human mind resembles these uneven mirrors which impart their own properties to different objects, from which rays are emitted and distort and disfigure them.
Francis Bacon
To relinquish a present good through apprehension of a future evil is in most instances unwise ... from a fear which may afterwards turn out groundless you lost the good that lay within your grasp.
Francesco Guicciardini
The surest way to prevent seditions...is to take away the matter of them.
Francis Bacon
The expenses of government, having for their object the interests of all, should be borne by every one, and the more a man enjoys the advantages of society, the more he ought to hold himself honoured in contributing to these expenses.
Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot
There's one blessing only the source and cornerstone of beatitude: confidence in self.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
A healthy body is a guest-chamber for the soul a sick body is a prison.
Sir Francis Bacon
Praise your children openly, reprove them secretly.
William Cecil
Amintirea plăcerilor este mai de durată și mai de încredere decât prezența lor.
Seneca
If you treat men the way they are you never improve them. If you treat them the way you want them to be you do.
Goethe
It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and--what will perhaps make you wonder more--it takes the whole of life to learn how to die.
Seneca
Cling, therefore, to this sound and wholesome plan of life; indulge the body just so far as suffices for good health. ... Your food should appease your hunger, your drink quench your thirst, your clothing keep out the cold, your house be a protection against inclement weather. It makes no difference whether it is built of turf or variegated marble imported from another country: what you have to understand is that thatch makes a person just as good a roof as gold.
Seneca
It is for the superfluous things of life that men sweat.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
In all things it is better to hope than to despair.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Preserve a sense of proportion in your attitude to everything that pleases you, and make the most of them while they are at their best.
Seneca
Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied.
Otto von Bismarck
I was on the point of breaking off the conversation, for nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
Edmund Burke