Great Throughts Treasury

"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever. "

"I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies."

"Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them."

"I have only one counsel for you - be master."

"In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage."

"Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools."

"He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander."

"In politics stupidity is not a handicap."

"In politics... never retreat, never retract... never admit a mistake."

"Men take only their needs into consideration - never their abilities."

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."

"Let the path be open to talent. "

"Respect the burden. "

"Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult."

"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet."

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."

"Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy."

"Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me."

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

"Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them."

"Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in."

"The best cure for the body is a quiet mind."

"The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue."

"The extent of your consciousness is limited only by your ability to love and to embrace with your love the space around you, and all it contains."

"The French complain of everything, and always. "

"The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies."

"The infectiousness of crime is like that of the plague."

"The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need."

"The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind."

"The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one's designs to one's means."

"There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit."

"The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man."

"There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous."

"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 torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny."

"With audacity one can undertake anything, but not do everything."

"When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my eyes."

"Throw off your worries when you throw off your clothes at night."

"When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity."

"You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war."

"Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world."

"This soldier, I realized, must have had friends at home and in his regiment; yet he lay there deserted by all except his dog. I looked on, unmoved, at battles which decided the future of nations. Tearless, I had given orders which brought death to thousands. Yet here I was stirred, profoundly stirred, stirred to tears. And by what? By the grief of one dog. "

"Courage isn't having the strength to go on - it is going on when you don't have strength."

"A woman laughing is a woman conquered."

"The greatest danger occurs at the moment of victory."

"The only victory over love is flight."

"The hand that gives is among the hand that takes. Money has no fatherland, financiers are without patriotism and without decency, their sole object is gain."

"A Government protected by foreigners will never be accepted by a free people."

"When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain."

"You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy's ranks."