# Otto von Bismarck's best-known quotes – real and attributed

From not going to Canossa and Germany in the saddle to the sausages he never actually mentioned: Bismarck's most famous lines with their source, from Reichstag speeches and letters.

- 0 votes · 13 items
- Apr 19, 2024 · Kathrin Schuster
- https://even.best/en/l/4596/otto-von-bismarck-s-best-known-quotes-real-and-attributed

## Top 13

1. **Rest assured, we are not going to Canossa, neither in body nor in spirit.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Speech in the Reichstag, 14 May 1872.
2. **Let us put Germany in the saddle, so to speak. It will know how to ride.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Speech in the North German Reichstag, 11 March 1867.
3. **We Germans fear God, but nothing else in the world.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Speech in the Reichstag, 6 February 1888.
4. **Whoever has his thumb on the purse has the power.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Speech in the North German Reichstag, 21 May 1869.
5. **A majority has many hearts, but it has no heart.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Speech in the Reichstag, 12 June 1882.
6. **An idea that is right cannot be lied down for ever.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Speech in the Reichstag, 12 June 1882.
7. **We Germans kill time with few things as much as with drinking beer.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Speech in the Reichstag, 28 March 1881.
8. **A good horse dies in harness.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Speech in the Reichstag, 4 March 1881.
9. **No government is as harmful to the country's interests as a weak one.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — To Hermann Hofmann, editor of the Hamburger Nachrichten, in the 1890s.
10. **Frankness always deserves recognition.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Speech in the Prussian Second Chamber, 24 November 1849.
11. **Grant that I may see my Johanna again.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Last words, 30 July 1898.
12. **Politics is the art of the possible.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Attributed; recorded in substance from a conversation on 11 August 1867.
13. **Laws are like sausages: it is better not to see them being made.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Attributed, with no evidence Bismarck said it.

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