When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.
Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.
To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.
The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.
Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.
What is history but a fable agreed upon?
If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.
Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.
The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one's designs to one's means.
He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.
The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
It requires more courage to suffer than to die.
If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.
A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.
Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.
Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.
One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.
If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.
History is a set of lies agreed upon.
Women are nothing but machines for producing children.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
Men take only their needs into consideration - never their abilities.
There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time.
It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.
One must change one's tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority.
History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.
In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
A leader is a dealer in hope.
All religions have been made by men.
The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind.
Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.
The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue courage is only the second virtue.
I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.
The human race is governed by its imagination.
Respect the burden.
Imagination rules the world.
The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.
The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.
In politics... never retreat, never retract... never admit a mistake.