Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes

Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.

In war, as in love, we must come into contact before we triumph.

All becomes easy when we follow the current of opinion; it is the ruler of the world.

Man is entitled by birthright to a share of the earth's produce sufficient to fill the needs of his existence.

Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.

The true wealth of a state consists in the number of its inhabitants, in their toil and industry.

There are so many laws that no one is safe from hanging.

The inevitable end of multiple chiefs is that they fade and disappear for lack of unity.

It would be a joke if the conduct of the victor had to be justified to the vanquished.

My true glory is not to have won 40 battles ... Waterloo will erase the memory of so many victories, ... But ... what will live forever, is my Civil Code.

The worse the troops the greater the need of artillery.

The heart of a statesman should be in his head.

Providence is always on the side of the last reserve.

Order marches with weighty and measured strides. Disorder is always in a hurry.

A great reputation is a great noise, the more there is of it, and the further does it swell. Land, monuments, Nations, all fall, but the noise remains, and will reach to other generations.

The law, that is what makes men stay honest.

Those who have changed the universe have never done it by changing officials, but always by inspiring the people.

Good and decent people must be protected and persuaded by gentle means, but the rabble must be led by terror.

The nature of Christ's existence is mysterious, I admit; but this mystery meets the wants of man. Reject it, and the world is an inexplicable riddle; believe it, and the history of our race is satisfactorily explained.

All Italians are plunderers.

You don't govern men who don't have religion, you shoot them.

For today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology. Where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of Thought is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people. With one will. One resolve. One cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death. And we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!

In political administration, no problem is ever simple. It can never be reduced to the question whether a certain measure is good or not.

We should wash our dirty linen at home.

Each state claims the right to control interests foreign to itself when those interests are such that it can control them without putting its own interests in danger. other powers only
recognize this right of intervening in proportion as the country doing it has the power to do it.

I see only my objective - the obstacles must give way.

The allies we gain by victory will turn against us upon the bare whisper of our defeat.

How many things apparently impossible have nevertheless been performed by resolute men who had no alternative but death.

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.

Civilization does everything for the mind and favors it entirely at the expense of the body.

If I always appear prepared, it is because before entering an undertaking, I have meditated long and have foreseen what might occur. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly and secretly what I should do in circumstances unexpected by others; it is thought and preparation

I am conquered less by fortune than by the egotism and ingratitude of my companions in arms.

When you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna.

Much shedding of blood, many great actions, and triumphs, toil and perseverance are the end of all things human.

War,
the trade of barbarians!

When I want any, good head work done; I always choose a man, if possible with a long nose.

Christ alone has succeeded in so raising the mind of man towards the unseen that it become insensible to the barriers of time and space.

Wherever flowers cannot be reared, there man cannot live.

Rashness succeeds often, still more often fails.

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

Republican despotism is more fertile in acts of tyranny, because everyone has a hand in it.

My success and everything good that I have done, I owe to my mother.

A man like me troubles himself little about a million men.

In war it is not men, but the man who counts.

Morality for the upper classes, the gallows for the rabbles.

Adversity is the midwife of genius

Force cannot organize anything.In the long run, the sword is always beaten by the spirit by which I mean the civil and religious institutions of a nation.
Napoleon Bonaparte.

All religions have been made by men.

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.

As for moral courage, it is very rare, he said, to find that kind found at 2 o'clock in the morning; that is to say, courage in the face of the unexpected.

Why and how are words so important that they cannot be too often used.

He is almost a statesman. He lies well.

The love of glory is like the bridge that Satan built across Chaos to pass from Hell to Paradise: glory links the past with the future across a bottomless abyss. Nothing to my son, except my name!

Men of learning in Milan have not enjoyed proper respect. They hid themselves in their laboratories and thought themselves lucky if ... priests left them alone. All is changed today. Thought in Italy is free. Inquisition, intolerance, despots have vanished. I invite scholars to meet and propose what must be done to give science and the arts a new flowering.

I am the signet which marks the page where the revolution has been stopped; but when I die it will turn the page and resume its course.

I tell you Wellington is a bad general, the English are bad soldiers; we will settle this matter by lunch time.

A woman laughing is a woman conquered.

You can ask me for anything you like, except time

In war you see your own troubles; those of the enemy you cannot see. You must show confidence.

Life is strewn with so many dangers, and can be the source of so many misfortunes, that death is not the greatest of them.

A constitution should be framed so as not to impede the action of government, nor force the government to its violation.

There are two levers for moving men - interest and fear.

I have seen only yoU, I have admired only yoU, I desire only You

When a man is a favorite of Fortune she never takes him unawares, and, however astonishing her favors may be, she finds him ready.

A great reserve and severity of manners are necessary for the command of those who are older than ourselves.

In war the simplest manoeuvres are the best.

Occupation is the scythe of time.

A nation recruits men more easily than it can retrieve its honour.

Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets..

The policies of all powers are inherent in their geography.

The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies

The great mass of society are far from being depraved; for if a large majority were criminal or inclined to break the laws, where would the force or power be to prevent or constrain them? And herein is the real blessing of civilization, because this happy result has its origin in her bosom, growing out of her very nature.

You can not lead a battle if you think you look silly on a horse.

If you know a country's geography, you can understand and predict its foreign policy.

If obedience is the result of the instinct of the masses, revolt is the result of their thought.

An aristocracy is the true support of a monarchy.

We live and die in the midst of marvels.

To attach no importance to public opinion, is a proof that you do not merit its suffrage.

To have a right estimate of a man's character, we must see him in misfortune.

It should not be believed that a march of three or four days in the wrong direction can be corrected by a countermarch. As a rule, this is to make two mistakes instead of one.

From triumph to downfall is but a step. I have seen a trifle decide the most important issues in the gravest affairs.

An urgent missive sent to Josephine Home in three days. Don't wash.

The French complain of everything, and always.

Soldiers, forty centuries are looking down upon you from these pyramids.

The principles of war are the same as those of a siege. Fire must be concentrated on one point, and as soon as the breach is made, the equilibrium is broken and the rest is nothing.

Oh Man, Man. How despicable in slavery, how great when fired with the love of freedom!

Incidents should not govern policy; but, policy incidents.

When you have an enemy in your power, deprive him of the means of ever injuring you.

Prussia was hatched from a cannon-ball.

Medicine is a collection of uncertain prescriptions, the results of which, taken collectively, are more fatal than useful to mankind.

A King should sacrifice the best affections of his heart for the good of his country; no sacrifice should be above his determination.

The first quality of a soldier is constancy in enduring fatigue and hardship. Courage is only the second. Poverty privation and want are the school of the good soldier.

If I were to give liberty to the press, my power could not last three days.

In a battle, as in a siege, the art consists in concentrating very heavy fire on a particular point. The line of battle once established, the one who has the ability to concentrate an
unlooked for mass of artillery suddenly and unexpectedly on one of these points is sure to carry the day.

The implements to him who can handle them.

How can you have order in a state without religion? For, when one man is dying of hunger near another who is ill of surfeit, he cannot resign himself to this difference unless there is an authority which declares 'God wills it thus.' Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

Few really believe. The most only believe that they believe or even make believe.

We must serve the people worthily, and not occupy ourselves in trying to please them. The best way, to gain their affections is to do them good.

There is only one thing in this world, and that is to keep acquiring money and more money, power and more power. All the rest is meaningless.

To negotiate is not to do as one likes.