diplomats-of-austria

"How can one sleep with a sense of security when one has to deal with a man who desires to change the map of Europe from day to day, and who, when in a bad humour threatens one with revolution?"

"The European question is: ‘Can Europe, in its political and economic fragmentation, preserve its peace and independence in the face of the growing non-European world powers – or is it forced, in order to save its existence, to organize itself into a federation of states?’."

"“Every great political happening began as a Utopia and ended as a Reality.”"

"Europe has become the battlefield of the earth. Its richest regions have been devastated, the flower of its population killed. Civilization is declining, while universal hatred and envy are growing. If Europe learns nothing from history, it will share the further fate of the Holy Roman Empire: it will become, politically and militarily, the chessboard of the world—an object of world politics, whereas once it was its subject."

"There is still time to save Europe from this destiny. The salvation is Pan-Europe: the political and economic merger of all states from Poland to Portugal into a federation of states."

"The man of the future will be of . Today's races and classes will gradually disappear owing to the vanishing of space, time, and prejudice. The Eurasian- race of the future will replace the diversity of peoples with a diversity of individuals. [...] Instead of destroying European Jewry, Europe, against its own will, refined and educated this people into a future leader-nation through this artificial selection process. No wonder that this people, that escaped Ghetto-Prison, developed into a spiritual nobility of Europe. Therefore a gracious Providence provided Europe with a new race of nobility by the Grace of Spirit. This happened at the moment when Europe's feudal aristocracy became dilapidated, and thanks to Jewish emancipation."

"As the Secretary General of the United Nations, an organization of the 147 member states who represent almost all of the human inhabitants of the planet Earth, I send greetings on behalf of the people of our planet. We step out of our solar system into the universe seeking only peace and friendship, to teach if we are called upon, to be taught if we are fortunate. We know full well that our planet and all its inhabitants are but a small part of the immense universe that surrounds us, and it is with humility and hope that we take this step."

"You must not expect the United Nations to accomplish miracles. We are made up of sovereign nations. We can only accomplish what our member nations allow us to accomplish."

"I do not expect miracles or spectacular successes - sound political progress is seldom based in either - but I am convinced that the United Nations provides the best road to the future for those who have confidence in our capacity to shape our own fate on this planet."

"We are men and women from many lands, representing a rich variety of cultures. And we have been brought together to work in a great common cause: the survival and progress of mankind. The concept of unity in diversity ... underlies our various pursuits at the United Nations."

"Selbstverständlich gibt es keine Kollektivschuld, trotzdem möchte ich mich als Staatsoberhaupt der Republik Österreich für jene Verbrechen entschuldigen, die von Österreichern im Zeichen des Nationalsozialismus begangen wurden."

"I love him and Maria does too, and so thank you, Kurt."

"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."

"Italy is only a geographical expression."

"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."

"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."