Impatience is a great obstacle to success; he who treats everything with brusqueness gathers nothing, or only immature fruit which will never ripen.

An army which cannot be reenforced is already defeated.

Morality has nothing to do with such a man as I am.

All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity; the less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything.

Life is strewn with so many dangers, and can be the source of so many misfortunes, that death is not the greatest of them.

Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.

I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.