Napoleon Bonaparte quotes:

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Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.
You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.
The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.
I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.
There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.
Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.
Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.
A leader is a dealer in hope.
The extent of your consciousness is limited only by your ability to love and to embrace with your love the space around you, and all it contains.
I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.
Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.
History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.
He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.
From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.
The army is the true nobility of our country.
A revolution can be neither made nor stopped. The only thing that can be done is for one of several of its children to give it a direction by dint of victories.
Medicines are only fit for old people.
War is the business of barbarians.
The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.
There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time.
The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.
Imagination rules the world.
Water, air, and cleanness are the chief articles in my pharmacy.
All religions have been made by men.
Throw off your worries when you throw off your clothes at night.
A man cannot become an atheist merely by wishing it.
If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.
We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.
In war, the moral is to the physical as ten to one.
Ability is of little account without opportunity.
A leader is a dealer in hope."
The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny.
Great ambition is the passion of a great character.
Washington is dead! This great man fought against Tyranny; he established the liberty of his country. His memory will always be dear to the French people, as it will be to all free men of the two worlds; and especially to French soldiers, who, like him and the American soldiers, have combated for liberty and equality.
War is ninety percent information.
Anarchy is the stepping stone to absolute power.
An army marches on its stomach.
Nothing is more destructive than the charge of artillery on a crowd.
God is on the side with the best artillery
The best generals are those who have served in the artillery.
The art of being sometimes audacious and sometimes very prudent is the secret of success.
With audacity one can undertake anything, but not do everything.
The world soffers a lot. Not because the violence of bad people. But because of the silence of the good people.
When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation
When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my eyes.
Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.
I fear three newspapers more than a hundred thousand bayonets
A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.
You can do anything with bayonets except sit on them
A journalist is a grumbler, a censurer, a giver of advice, a regent of sovereigns, a tutor of nations. Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.
The bayonet has always been the weapon of the brave and the chief tool of victory
The bed has become a place of luxury to me! I would not exchange it for all the thrones in the world
Mankind are in the end always governed by superiority of intellectual faculties, and none are more sensible of this than the military profession. When, on my return from Italy, I assumed the dress of the Institute, and associated with men of science, I knew what I was doing: I was sure of not being misunderstood by the lowest drummer boy in the army.
A throne is only a bench covered with velvet.
The Bible is no mere book, but a Living Creature, with a power that conquers all that oppose it.
Bloodletting is among the ingredients of political medicine.
The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.
I love a brave soldier who has undergone the baptism of fire.
The heart may be broken, and the soul remain unshaken.
If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.
The keys of a fortress are always well worth the retirement of the garrison when it is resolved to yield only on those conditions. On this principle it is always wiser to grant an honorable capitulation to a garrison which has made a vigorous resistance than to risk an assault.
Without cavalry, battles are without result.
Cavalry is useful before, during, and after the battle.
I would rather suffer with coffee than be senseless.
The spectacle of a field of battle after the combat, is sufficient to inspire Princes with the love of peace, and the horror of war.
I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.
The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.
Public morals are natural complement of all laws they are by themselves an entire code.
Among so many conflicting ideas and so many different perspectives, the honest man is confused and distressed and the skeptic becomes wicked ... Since one must take sides, one might as well choose the side that is victorious, the side which devastates, loots, and burns. Considering the alternative, it is better to eat than to be eaten.
Conscription is the vitality of a nation, the purification of its morality, and the real foundations of all its habits
Men take only their needs into consideration - never their abilities.
The Concordat is not the victory of any one party but the consolidation of all.
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
Great men grow tired of contentedness.
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.
A cowardly act! What do I care about that? You may be sure that I should never fear to commit one if it were to my advantage.
Orders and decorations are necessary in order to dazzle the people.
One can lead a nation only by helping it see a bright outlook. A leader is a dealer in hope.
Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.
You become strong by defying defeat and by turning loss into gain and failure to success.
It is only by prudence, wisdom, and dexterity that great ends are attained and obstacles overcome. Without these qualities nothing succeeds.
The word impossible is not in my dictionary.
There is no Nation however small which had the right to set itself free, that has not rescued itself from the dishonour of obeying the Prince imposed by an enemy in the hour of victory.
Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
My downfall raises me to infinite heights.
England is a nation of shopkeepers.
The nature of Christ is, I grant it, from one end to another, a web of mysteries; but this mysteriousness does not correspond to the difficulties which all existence contains. Let it be rejected, and the whole world is an enigma; let it be accepted, and we possess a wonderful explanation of the history of man.
What is history but a fable agreed upon?
Strangers are just friends waiting to happen. To become a good man, one must have faithful friends, or outright enemies.
There is no place in a fanatic's head where reason can enter.
The hand that gives is among the hand that takes. Money has no fatherland, financiers are without patriotism and without decency, their sole object is gain.
When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary.
He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.
Vengeance has no foresight.
France has more need of me than I have need of France.
I have made noise enough in the world already, perhaps too much, and am now getting old, and want retirement.
Morality for the upper classes, the gallows for the rabbles.
I believe love to be hurtful to society, and to the individual happiness of men. I believe, in short, that love does more harm than good.
Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.
Great battles are won with artillery.
The secret of great battles consists in knowing how to deploy and concentrate at the right time.
To imagine that it is possible to perform great military deeds without fighting is just empty dreams.
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.
In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
Courage isn't having the strength to go on - it is going on when you don't have strength.
True heroism consists in being superior to the ills of life, in whatever shape they may challenge us to combat.
The human race is governed by its imagination.
How many really capable men are children more than once during the day!
I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay their hands on everything they can get.
Charges of cavalry are equally useful at the beginning, the middle and the end of a battle. They should be made always, if possible, on the flanks of the infantry, especially when the latter is engaged in front.
Artillery is more essential to cavalry than to infantry, because cavalry has no fire for its defence, but depends on the sabre.
Good infantry is without doubt the sinews of an army; but if it has to fight a long time against very superior artillery, it will become demoralized and will be destroyed.

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