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