Mahomet was a great man, an intrepid soldier; with a handful of men he triumphed at the battle of Bender [sic]; a great captain, eloquent, a great man of state, he revived his fatherland and created a new people and a new power in the middle of Arabia.

Muhammad was a prince; he rallied his compatriots around him. In a few years, the Muslims conquered half of the world. They plucked more souls from false gods, knocked down more idols, razed more pagan temples in fifteen years than the followers of Moses and Jesus did in fifteen centuries. Muhammad was a great man. He would indeed have been a god, if the revolution that he had performed had not been prepared by the circumstances.

A people that is able to say everything, becomes able to do everything. The crowd which follows me with admiration, would run with the same eagerness were I marching to the Guillotine.

Tragedy warms the soul, elevates the heart, can and ought to create heroes. In this sense, perhaps, France owes a part of her great actions to Corneille.

Cossacks are the best light troops among all that exist. If I had them in my army, I would go through all the world with them.

If the Earth were a single state, Istanbul would be its capital.