Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes

As a rule it is circumstances that make men.

I treat policies like war. I hoodwink one flank so as to trounce the other. In my family we kneel only to God.

All the women in the world would not make me lose an hour.

It is not by whining that one carries out the job of king.

Men take only their needs into consideration - never their abilities.

The fool has one great advantage over a man of sense; he is always satisfied with himself.

In war, as in prostitution, amateurs are often better than professionals.

Put your iron hand in a velvet glove.

There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed.

The best way to make every one poor is to insist on equality of wealth.

America is a fortunate country. She grows by the follies of our European nations.

The worse the man the better the soldier. If soldiers be not corrupt they ought to be made so.

Do you know what astonished me the most in this world? The inability of force to create anything.

An army marches on its stomach.

My dominion ends where that of conscience begins.

Opportunities? I make opportunities.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

I hope before long to press you in my arms and shall shower on you a million burning kisses as under the Equator.

People take England on trust, and repeat that Shakespeare is the greatest of all authors. I have read him: there is nothing that compares Racine or Corneille: his plays are unreadable, pitiful.

If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.

If we could read the past histories of all our enemies we would disregard all hostility for them.

If I had not been defeated in Acre against Jezzar Pasha of Turk. I would conquer all of the East.

All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity; the less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything.

The world soffers a lot. Not because the violence of bad people. But because of the silence of the good people.

The tools belong to the man who can use them.

Providence is always on the side of the last reserve.

A man occupied with public or other important business cannot, and need not, attend to spelling.

Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.

It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.

I may have had many projects, but I never was free to carry out any of them.

From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.

Every hour of lost time is a chance of future misfortune.

The object of war is victory, the object of victory is conquest, and the object of conquest is occupation.

Conquest has made me what I am, only conquest can maintain me.

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

Treason is a matter of dates.

Put a rogue in the limelight and he will act like an honest man.

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

The practice of law sharpens the mind by making it narrow.

In my youth I, too, entertained some illusions; but I soon recovered from them.

The reason most people fail instead of succeed is they trade what they want most for what they want at the moment.

Military despotism represses generous sentiments, priestly tyranny stifles them.

I do not amuse myself by thinking of dead people.

Europe thus divided into nationalities freely formed and free internally, peace between States would have become easier: the United States of Europe would become a possibility.

The affairs of war, like the destiny of battles, as well as empires, hang upon a spiders thread.

Two armies are two bodies which meet and try to frighten each other.

It is a mistake, too, to say that the face is the mirror of the soul. The truth is, men are very hard to know, and yet, not to be deceived, we must judge them by their present actions, but for the present only.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.