“Politics is the art of the possible.”

— Otto von Bismarck

Franklin says this line in the HBO miniseries John Adams, but it is actually a quote of Otto von Bismarck.

(de) Die Politik ist die Lehre vom Möglichen. Interview (11 August 1867) with Friedrich Meyer von Waldeck of the St. Petersburgische Zeitung: Aus den Erinnerungen eines russischen Publicisten. 2. Ein Stündchen beim Kanzler des norddeutschen Bundes.

In: Die Gartenlaube (1876) p. 858 de.wikisource. Reprinted in Fürst Bismarck: neue Tischgespräche und Interviews, Vol. 1, p. 248 http://books.google.com/books?id=UpUBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA248&dq=%22die+Politik+ist+die+Lehre+vom+Möglichen%22
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Otto von Bismarck / Quotes / 1860s
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die Politik ist die Lehre vom Möglichen.

Friedrich Meyer von Waldeck: Aus den Erinnerungen eines russischen Publicisten. 2. Ein Stündchen beim Kanzler des norddeutschen Bundes. In: Die Gartenlaube (1876) p. 858 de.wikisource https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Seite:Die_Gartenlaube_(1876)_858.jpg. Auch in Fürst Bismarck. Neue Tischgespräche und Interviews, Band 1 (1895), S. 248 https://books.google.de/books?id=UpUBAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22Lehre+vom%22 und Die gesammelten Werke Band 7 (1924), S. 222 books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=3wpoAAAAMAAJ&q=%22lehre+vom%22
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Otto von Bismarck 35

German statesman, Chancellor of Germany 1815–1898

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