Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 14; Variant: A prince should therefore have no other aim or thought, nor take up any other thing for his study but war and it organization and discipline, for that is the only art that is necessary to one who commands.
Context: A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules, and it is of such force that it not only upholds those who are born princes, but it often enables men to rise from a private station to that rank. And, on the contrary, it is seen that when princes have thought more of ease than of arms they have lost their states. And the first cause of your losing it is to neglect this art; and what enables you to acquire a state is to be master of the art.
“Prince Wilhelm seems to have a good deal of his grandfather about him. If his parents have aimed at training him to be a constitutional monarch ready to bow to the rule of a parliamentary majority they have failed.”
Waldersee in his diary, 6 December 1883, quoted in Walter R. Pierce, Herr und Heer: The German Social Democrats and the Officer Corps, A Reappraisal
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Alfred von Waldersee 37
Prussian Field Marshal 1832–1904Related quotes
Source: Commissions and Omissions by Indian Presidents and Their Conflicts with the Prime Ministers Under the Constitution: 1977-2001, P.233.
A longer paraphrase of this quotation, with modern embellishments, is often attributed to Laozi: see "Misattributed" below.
Source: Tao Te Ching, Ch. 17
8 December 2017 https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2017/12/08/trump-time-congress-adopt-pro-american-immigration-agenda/
2010s, 2017, December