Top 19 Quotes & Sayings by Klemens von Metternich

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Austrian politician Klemens von Metternich.
Last updated on December 21, 2024.
Klemens von Metternich

Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, Prince of Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein, known as Klemens von Metternich or Prince Metternich, was a conservative Austrian statesman and diplomat who was at the center of the European balance of power known as the Concert of Europe for three decades as the Austrian Empire's foreign minister from 1809 and Chancellor from 1821 until the liberal Revolutions of 1848 forced his resignation.

When Paris sneezes, Europe catches cold.
Italy is a geographical expression.
I have never feared that the revolution would be engendered by the universities; but that at them a whole generation of revolutionaries must be formed, unless the evil is restrained, seems to me certain.... The greatest and consequently most urgent evil now is the press.... All journals, pamphlets in Germany must be under a censorship.
Any plan conceived in moderation must fail when the circumstances are set in extremes. — © Klemens von Metternich
Any plan conceived in moderation must fail when the circumstances are set in extremes.
When Paris sneezes, Europe catches a cold.
The events which can not be prevented, must be directed.
The men who make history have not time to write it.
Error has never approached my spirit.
The word 'Italy' is a geographical expression, a description which is useful shorthand, but has none of the political significance the efforts of the revolutionary ideologues try to put on it, and which is full of dangers for the very existence of the states which make up the peninsula.
In Europe democracy is a falsehood. I do not know where it will end, but it cannot end in a quiet old age.
Men like M. de Talleyrand are like sharp instruments with which it is dangerous to play.
Ten million ignorances do not constitute one knowledge.
When France sneezes, all of Europe catches cold.
It is useless to close the gates against ideas; they overlap them.
The word 'freedom' means for me not a point of departure but a genuine point of arrival. The point of departure is defined by the word 'order.' Freedom cannot exist without the concept of order.
Stability is not immobility.
I came into the world either too early or too late; at present, I am good for nothing.
The obvious is always least understood.
Italy is only a geographical expression. — © Klemens von Metternich
Italy is only a geographical expression.
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