I found myself without money, without credit, without army, without experience and knowledge of my own, and finally, also without any counsel, because each one of them at first wanted to wait and see how things would develop.

I know of no greater plague than this race, which on account of its deceit, usury and avarice is driving my subjects into beggary. Therefore as far as possible, the Jews are to be kept away and avoided.

What right have we to rob an innocent nation that it has hitherto been our boast to protect and support?

The school is and will always remain a matter of state.

You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!

-- Oliver Cromwell

Terror is nothing other than justice — prompt, severe, inflexible; it is therefore an emanation of virtue.

-- Maximilien Robespierre

The mainspring of popular government in revolution is at once virtue and terror — virtue, without which terror is fatal; terror, without which virtue is powerless.

-- Maximilien Robespierre

To love justice and equality, the people need no great virtue; it is enough that they love themselves.

-- Maximilien Robespierre

The mercy of late birth.

-- Helmut Kohl

It is harder to maintain the balance of liberty than to bear the weight of tyranny.

-- Simón Bolívar