Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes

‘Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘In politics stupidity is not a handicap.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘The best way to keep one’s word is not to give it.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Women are nothing but machines for producing children.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘History is a set of lies agreed upon.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

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

‘A leader is a dealer in hope.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Victory belongs to the most persevering.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘A true man hates no one.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘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.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘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.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

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

‘There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Ability is nothing without opportunity.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘It requires more courage to suffer than to die.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘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.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

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

‘Imagination rules the world.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘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.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘An army marches on its stomach.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Water, air, and cleanness are the chief articles in my pharmacy.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Respect the burden.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘A throne is only a bench covered with velvet.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Throw off your worries when you throw off your clothes at night.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘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.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘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.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘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.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘One must change one’s tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one’s superiority.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one’s self to destiny.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘France has more need of me than I have need of France.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘I have only one counsel for you – be master.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘There are only two forces that unite men – fear and interest.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

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

‘Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘In politics… never retreat, never retract… never admit a mistake.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘I am the successor, not of Louis XVI, but of Charlemagne.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘With audacity one can undertake anything, but not do everything.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘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.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one’s designs to one’s means.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Let the path be open to talent.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘The battle of Austerlitz is the grandest of all I have fought.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘The human race is governed by its imagination.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘The army is the true nobility of our country.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘A Constitution should be short and obscure.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my eyes.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘All religions have been made by men.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy’s ranks.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Riches do not consist in the possession of treasures, but in the use made of them.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘The French complain of everything, and always.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘It is my wish that my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people, whom I have loved so well.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Ambition never is in a greater hurry than I; it merely keeps pace with circumstances and with my general way of thinking.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘I made all my generals out of mud.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Men take only their needs into consideration – never their abilities.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘A man cannot become an atheist merely by wishing it.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘England is a nation of shopkeepers.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘What is history but a fable agreed upon? – Napoleon Bonaparte’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘The act of policing is, in order to punish less often, to punish more severely.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘The infectiousness of crime is like that of the plague.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘A celebrated people lose dignity upon a closer view.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘War is the business of barbarians.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Medicines are only fit for old people.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte

‘Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte