Karl August von Hardenberg Quotes

The French revolution was… to terminate the strife of kings among themselves, and to commence that between kings and people…. The princes of Europe, who had hitherto had no enemies but themselves, viewed it in the light of a common foe.

Germany is the new Sparta. The same spirit of national discipline and self-sacrifice which earned for a few thousand inhabitants of a small Greek city-state an enduring place in history is being reproduced here by 67,000,000 of what are in some ways the most intelligent, industrious and high-spirited, and hardy people in the world. The last two years have witnessed here a political process as profound and far-reaching in its effects as the French Revolution. Germany has set a new pace of human endeavor. She has acquired a national momentum without precedent in political dynamics.

They are as blind to some of the tendencies of the time as the French Noblese was before the French Revolution.

A revolution in itself is not a blessing. The revolution accomplished by the French people is, indeed, a wonderful event - the most striking, in my opinion, in history; but it may lead to events which will make it a mighty evil.

Our nation has a message. That is why it can never be an average nation. Throughout history our nation has either soared to the heights or fallen into the abyss through the envy, conspiracy and enmity of others.

Let's face it: without the French there would be no America...in other words, without them, there is no us.

Havana.- If 1959 was the Year of Liberation, 1960 was the Year of the Agrarian Reform. The nation lived days of intense transformations, not only political but, also, in every aspect of social and individual activity of its citizens.

I do not believe that monarchy and aristocracy will continue seven years longer in any of the enlightened countries of Europe

The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth, for kings are not only God's lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne.

A revolution has taken place within the government but it has not yet penetrated civil society.

Our belief in ourselves as a nation will perish.

[In the French Revolution] there is much to approve and much to condemn…. An essential change was necessary for the happiness and dignity of a great people, long in a state of degradation.

People don't see very often their death coming... Look at the French Revolution: The king of France was thinking in the 1780s, 'We're doing rather better than my father in the 1770s.'

I want the system to change so I think you could call that a revolution.

Perhaps a revolution can overthrow autocratic despotism and profiteering or power-grabbing oppression, but it can never truly reform a manner of thinking; instead, new prejudices, just like the old ones they replace, will serve as a leash for the great unthinking mass.

All men now allow that if any human power could have stemmed the avalanche of the French Revolution, it would have been the reforms of Turgot.

I ascribe the New Deal as important almost on a par with the French Revolution – not merely an important event in the history of the United States, but the most important event in the history of the United States.

A revolution is generally only evolution--an explosive sequence of events crowded into a short space of time, but leaving more of the ancient regime untouched than usually is at first apparent.

The head of England is a woman, and quite young, and all orders come from her.

Poverty gives rise to the desire for change, the desire for action and the desire for revolution.

The people must come first. Where they do not, sooner or later, they will overthrow their governments.

The big policy wins of the New Deal were actually offered as compromises. Because the alternative seemed to be revolution.

Work for legal reform takes place only within the framework of the social form created by the last revolution.

Hercules King of Rome and of Annemark, three times one surnamed de Gaulle will lead, Italy and the one of St. Mark to tremble, first monarch, renowned above all.

It sounds ghoulish, but it would have been fascinating to be in Paris in 1789 and watch the revolution begin. I can't even imagine what the energy must have been like that year with all of that change crackling in the air.