Klemens von Metternich

"Italy is only a geographical expression."

"I made history and therefore did not find time to write it."

"Strength in Right"

"But what did he mean by that?"

"There is a wide sweep about my mind. I am always above and beyond the preoccupation of most public men; I cover a ground much vaster than they can see. I cannot keep myself from saying about twenty times a day: 'How right I am, and how wrong they are.'"

"The true character of our time is that of an era of transition. Fate imposed on me the duty of coming between the phases of this era... To me the political game did not at all seem to answer to the needs of the time; I made myself a conservative socialist. The conservative principles are applicable to the most diverse situations; their worship is not enclosed within narrow bounds; they are enemies of anarchy, moral and material."

"I shall die as I have lived, not as a politician but as a socialist."

"To ruin those who possess something is not to come to the aid of those who possess nothing; it is only to render misery general."

"Among the causes of the tremendous confusion characterising present-day Europe is the transplantation of British institutions to the Continent where they are in complete contradiction to existing conditions, so that their application becomes either illusory or distorted. The so-called "British school" has been the cause of the French Revolution, and the consequences of this revolution, so anti-British in tendency, devastate Europe today. The concepts of freedom and order are so inseparable in the British mind that the last stable-boy would laugh in the face of the reformers if they appeared by preaching his freedom."

"Most people associate me with Metternich. And that is childish. My only connection with Metternich is a book I wrote: It was to be the first volume in a lengthy study of the construction and disintegration of international order in the 19th century. The series was to cover the whole period up to World War I, that's all."

"Prince Metternich thinks he is a conservative, in clinging obstinately to the status quo in Europe; we think ourselves conservative in preaching and advising everywhere concessions, reforms and improvements, where public opinion demands them; you on the contrary refuse them."

"Just as the fall of the Bastille launched the great French revolution, so the central European revolutions of 1848 were launched by a fall, in this case the fall of a single man, Prince Metternich, Chancellor of Austria since 1821 and the symbol of reaction and repression. On 13 March 1848 discontented aristocrats persuaded the Emperor to dismiss Metternich, and with this the conservative order collapsed."

"The enemy which he fought with a simple courage and a tireless energy was the French Revolution and the opinions which it enforced. Determined to save his own country from terror and subversion, determined to preserve the balance of power in Europe, he set his face sternly against the excesses of thought and action which had filled the gutters of Paris with blood. Like the trained soldier that he was, he had studied his enemies' positions, and had armed himself efficiently for the fray. His passionless intellect permitted him to form a clear judgment of all parties."

"During the troubled years, 1813–14, Metternich showed astounding skill in the management of affairs. He had studied the character of Napoleon with so eager a precision, that his policy was nearer to science than to art. If the ultimate downfall of Napoleon was assured by the energy and statecraft of Pitt, it was the diplomacy of Metternich which hastened the coup de grâce. Had Metternich gone into retirement after Waterloo, he would have bequeathed to posterity an unbroken reputation. He had achieved his purpose with singular success. The Revolution, which he had set himself to destroy, was crumbled in pieces. The man of genius who had turned the forces of disorder to his own use was a lonely, hopeless exile. Metternich's work was done, his wages ta’en. But he lacked the imagination to understand his own achievement. Though anarchy was dead for the moment, he was still eager to fight it. He persisted in his policy of counter-revolution, long after the necessity had passed away. The fall of Napoleon gave him no sense of security, and with the aid of the Holy Alliance, which was established upon a patriarchal basis to secure the interest of all thrones, he determined to govern Europe with an iron hand. For the Napoleonic system he substituted a system of his own. He announced himself the friend of all absolute monarchs, and he declared that no country had any other hope of salvation than in a benevolent despotism. His aim and purpose was to check the growth of representative government wherever it threatened an appearance. Europe was at peace, and he still shaped his policy as though Napoleon were leading to victory an army of Jacobins."