"My attitude towards Foreign Governments springs not from any antipathy, but from the good or evil they may do to Prussia." "A policy of sentiment is dangerous, for it is one-sided; it is an exclusively Prussian peculiarity." "Every other Government makes its own interests the sole criterion of its actions, however much it may drape them in phrases about justice and sympathy." "My ideal for foreign policy is freedom from prejudice; that our decisions should be independent of all impressions of dislike or affection for Foreign States and their governments."
This was the canon by which he directed his own actions, and he expected obedience to it from others.
"So far as foreigners go I have never in my life had sympathy for anyone but England and its inhabitants, and I am even now not free from it; but they will not let us love them, and as soon as it was proved to me that it was in the interest of a sound and well-matured Prussian policy, I would let our troops fire on French, English, Russian, or Austrian, with the same satisfaction."
"I cannot justify sympathies and antipathies as regards Foreign Powers and persons before my feeling of duty in the foreign service of my country, either myself or another; therein lies the embryo of disloyalty against my master or my country. In my opinion not even the King himself has the right to subordinate the interests of his country to his own feelings of love or hatred towards strangers; he is, however, responsible towards God and not to me if he does so, and therefore on this point I am silent."
This reference to the King is very characteristic.
