This policy cannot succeed through speeches, and shooting-matches, and songs; it can only be carried out through blood and iron.

With bad laws and good civil servants it's still possible to govern. But with bad civil servants even the best laws can't help.

I have often regretted what I have eaten, but never what I have drunk.

A bad plan that is well executed will yield much better results than a good plan that is poorly executed.

I have found that nothing so deceives your adversaries as telling them the truth.

I must protest that I would never seek foreign conflicts just to go over domestic difficulties; that would be frivolous. I was speaking of conflicts that we could not avoid, even though we do not seek them.

Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.