Max Wright > Max's Quotes

“Historians are like deaf people who go on answering questions that no one has asked them.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“To educate the peasantry, three things are needed: schools, schools and schools.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“Kings are the slaves of history.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“[Otto von Bismarck] only considered the interests of his own country - always the worst offense that a statesman can commit in the eyes of foreigners.”
― A.J.P. Taylor, Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman

“Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others.”
― Otto von Bismarck

“Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made.”
― Otto von Bismarck

“the main thing is to make history not to write it”
― Otto von Bismarck

“In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“History is a set of lies agreed upon.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“History is written by the winners.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“It had been a damned nice thing - the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life. (Waterloo 18 June 1815)

'I hope to God,' he said one day,'that I have fought my last battle.It is a bad thing to be always fighting.While in the thick of it,I am much too occupied to feel anything;but it is wretched just after.It is quite impossible to think of glory.Both mind and feeling are exhausted.I am wretched even at the moment of victory,and I always say that next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained.Not only do you lose those dear friends with whom you have been living,but you are forced to leave the wounded behind you.To be sure one tries to do the best for them,but how little that is!At such moments every feeling in your breast is deadened.I am now just beginning to retain my natural spirits,but I never wish for any more fighting.”
― Arthur Wellesley Wellington