"The future is a land of which there are no maps; and historians err when they describe even the most purposeful statesman as though he were marching down a broad highroad with his objective already in sight. More flexible historians admit that a statesman often has alternative courses before him; yet even they depict him as one choosing the course at the crossroads. Certainly the development of history has its own logical laws. But these laws resemble rather those by which flood-water flows into hitherto unseen channels and forces itself finally to an unpredictable sea. In Bismarck's words: 'Man cannot create the current of events. He can only float with it and steer.'"
A.J.P. Taylor, Bismarck. The Man and the Statesman, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1955, p. 70.
Het prentje: Franz von Lenbach (1836-1904),
Otto von Bismarck, ca. 1889.
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten