Germany's greatness makes it impossible for her to do without the ocean, but the ocean also proves that even in the distance, and on its farther side, without Germany and the German Emperor, no great decision dare henceforth be taken.

The tsar [Nicholas II] is not treacherous but he is weak. Weakness is not treachery, but it fulfils all its functions.

I am not a man who believes that we Germans bled and conquered thirty years ago [to be] pushed aside when great international decisions are made. If that were to happen, the place of Germany as a world power would be gone for ever. I am not prepared to let that happen.

Just as the Huns under their king Attila created for themselves a thousand years ago a name which men still respect, you should give the name of German such cause to be remembered in China that no Chinaman will dare look a German in the face.

Germany must have her place in the sun.

You English are like mad bulls... you see red everywhere! What on earth has come over you, to heap on us such suspicion as is unworthy of a great nation. I regard this as a personal insult... You make it uncommonly difficult for a man to remain friendly to England.

England must have the mask of Christian peaceableness [peacefulness] torn publicly from her face... Our consuls in Turkey and India, agents, etc. must inflame the whole Muslim world to wild revolt against this hateful, lying, conscienceless people of hagglers. For even if we are to be bled to death, at least England shall lose India.

It is the soldier and the army, not parliamentary majorities and decisions, that have welded the German Empire together. I put my trust in the army.

For the first time, I am ashamed to be a German.

We have conquered for ourselves a place in the sun. It will now be my task to see to it that this place in the sun remains our undisputed possession, for our future lies upon the water.

Woe and death to all who resist my will!

You will come home before the leaves have fallen from the trees.

Paris for lunch, dinner in St. Petersburg.

Give me a woman who loves beer and I will conquer the world.

Our German Fatherland to which I hope will be granted... to become in the future as closely united, as powerful, and as authoritative as once the Roman world-empire was, and that, just as in the old times they said, Civis romanus sum, hereafter, at some time in the future, they will say, I am a German citizen.

I look upon the People and the Nation as handed on to me as an responsibility conferred upon me by God, and I believe, as it is written in the Bible, that it is my duty to increase this heritage for which one day I shall be called upon to give an account. Whoever tries to interfere with my task I shall crush.

I see myself as an instrument of the Almighty and go on my way, regardless of transient opinions and views.

I am the emperor of Germany, but you are the emperor of chefs.