Setzen wir Deutschland, so zu sagen, in den Sattel! Reiten wird es…

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.

The politician has not to revenge what has happened but to ensure that it does not happen again.

I grant that I am full of prejudices; I sucked them in with my mother's milk, and I cannot possibly argue them away.

The social insecurity of the worker is the real cause of their being a peril to the state.

A conquering army on the border will not be stopped by eloquence.

I see in the whole no interest for Germany which would be worth even [...] the healthy bones of a single Pomeranian musketeer. Speech to the Reichstag 5 December 1876