A master of improvised speech and improvised policies.

We are apt to say that a foreign policy is successful only when the country, or at any rate the governing class, is united behind it. In reality, every line of policy is repudiated by a section, often by an influential section, of the country concerned. A foreign minister who waited until everyone agreed with him would have no foreign policy at all.

Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a Great War, the only way of remaining a Great Power is not to fight one.

History is not a catalogue but...a convincing version of events.

Psychoanalysts believe that the only "normal" people are those who cause not trouble to either themselves or anyone else.

All other forms of history - economic history, social history, psychological history, above all sociology - seem to me history with the history left out.

Bismarck fought 'necessary' wars and killed thousands, the idealists of the twentieth century fight 'just' wars and kill millions.