Poems List

If there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans.

attributed by Herr Ballen and quoted by Winston S. Churchill in the House of Commons, 16 August 1945

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I do not regard the procuring of peace as a matter in which we should play the role of arbiter between different opinions … more that of an honest broker who really wants to press the business forward.

speech to the Reichstag, 19 February 1878

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Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong, [it is] a geographical concept.

marginal note on a letter from the Russian Chancellor Gorchakov, November 1876; see Metternich 233:17

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We will not go to Canossa.

during his quarrel with Pope Pius IX regarding papal authority over German subjects, in allusion to the Emperor Henry IV’s submission to Pope Gregory VII at Canossa in Modena in 1077

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Not worth the healthy bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.

of possible German involvement in the Balkans; see Harris 162:16

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Politics is the art of the possible.

in conversation with Meyer von Waldeck, 11 August 1867; see Butler 79:5, Galbraith 145:5, Medawar 232:1

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The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.

in 1863, when first in power

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