There is nothing they [Russian leaders] admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness.

Strength is life, Weakness is death.

Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.

Both classically and romantically-minded spirits - in as much as these two species always exist - occupy themselves with a vision of the future: but the former do so out of a strength of their age, the latter out of its weakness.

To demand of strength that it should not express itself as strength, that it should not be a desire to overcome, a desire to throw down, a desire to become master, a thirst for enemies and resistances and triumphs, is just as absurd as to demand of weakness that it should express itself as strength.

Honesty in politics is the result of strength, hypocrisy is the result of weakness.