If the art of war were nothing but the art of avoiding risks, glory would become the prey of mediocre minds.... I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest.

It is not by whining that one carries out the job of king.

Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.

All systems of morality are fine. The gospel alone has exhibited a complete assemblage of the principles of morality, divested of all absurdity. It is not composed, like your creed, of a few common-place sentences put into bad verse. Do you wish to see that which is really sublime? Repeat the Lord's Prayer.

When you have an enemy in your power, deprive him of the means of ever injuring you.

Ambition never is in a greater hurry that I; it merely keeps pace with circumstances and with my general way of thinking.

All the women in the world would not make me lose an hour.