Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes

Orders and decorations are necessary in order to dazzle the people.

There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time.

There is only one favorable moment in war; talent consists in knowing how to seize it.

In Russia there are no roads - only areas.

The act of policing is, in order to punish less often, to punish more severely.

Alexander, Charlemagne and myself all tried to found an empire on force and we failed. Jesus Christ is building an empire on love, and today there are millions of people who would gladly die for His sake.

Leaders have to be dealers in hope.

I start out by believing the worst

The World is not ruined by the wickedness of the wicked, but by the weakness of the good.

Treaties are observed as long as they are in harmony with interests.

He is almost a statesman. He lies well.

Rashness succeeds often, still more often fails.

There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Men have their virtues and their vices, their heroisms and their perversities; men are neither wholly good nor wholly bad, but possess and practice all that there is of good and bad here below. Such is the general rule. Temperament, education, the accidents of life, are modifying factors. Outside of this, everything is ordered arrangement, everything is chance. Such has been my rule of expectation and it has usually brought me success.

Fashion condemns us to many follies, the greatest is to make oneself its slave.

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

One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.

Those who failed to oppose me, who readily agreed with me and accepted all my views, were those who did me the most injury.

Victory belongs to the most persevering.

The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.

Posterity alone rightly judges kings. Posterity alone has the right to accord or withhold honors.

In a conquered country benevolence is not humanitarianism. It is a general political axiom that a conqueror must not inspire a good opinion of his benevolence until he has demonstrated that he can be severe with malefactors.

To imagine that it is possible to perform great military deeds without fighting is just empty dreams.

In politics nothing is immutable. Events carry within them an invincible power. The unwise destroy themselves in resistance. The skillful accept events, take strong hold of them and direct them.

Liberty is a need felt by a small class of people whom nature has endowed with nobler minds than the mass of men;.... Consequently, it may be repressed with impunity. Equality, on the other hand, pleases the masses.

To write history one must be more than a man, since the author who holds the pen of this great justiciary must be free from all preoccupation of interest or vanity.

Prussia was hatched from a cannon-ball.

The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind.

If you (to General Bertrand) do not perceive that Jesus Christ is God, very well; then I did wrong to make you a general.

I made all my generals out of mud.

The advance and perfecting of mathematics are closely joined to the prosperity of the nation.

Neglect of duty does not cease, by repetition, to be neglect of duty.

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.

It is cowardice to commit suicide.

What is the future? What is the past? What are we? What is the magic fluid that surrounds us and conceals the things we most need to know? We live and die in the midst of marvels.

From first to last, Jesus is the same; always the same--majestic and simple, infinitely severe and infinitely gentle.

When I give a minister an order, I leave it to him to find the means to carry it out.

Courage cannot be counterfeited. It is one virtue that escapes hypocrisy.

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

The infectiousness of crime is like that of the plague.

In these days the invention of printing, and the diffusion of knowledge, render historical calumnies a little less dangerous: truth will always prevail in the long run, but how slow its progress!

When I was happy I thought I knew men, but it was fated that I should know them in misfortune only.

Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.

Policemen and prisons ought never to be the means used to bring men back to the practice of religion.

To make yourself understood to people, one must first speak to their eyes

A beautiful woman like eyes, and a good heart; One is a beautiful thing, and other treasures.

Courage isn't having the strength to go on - it is going on when you don't have strength.

Audacity succeeds as often as it fails; in life it has an even chance.