Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes
Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
It requires more courage to suffer than to die.
There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time.
Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.
A Constitution should be short and obscure.
It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.
Courage is like love: it must have hope for nourishment.
France has more need of me than I have need of France.
To have good soldiers, a nation must always be at war.
If the art of war were nothing but the art of avoiding risks, glory would become the prey of mediocre minds.... I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest.
To extraordinary circumstance we must apply extraordinary remedies.
As for me, to love you alone, to make you happy, to do nothing which would contradict your wishes, this is my destiny and the meaning of my life.
Better not to have been born than to live without glory.
One must indeed be ignorant of the methods of genius to suppose that it allows itself to be cramped by forms. Forms are for mediocrity, and it is fortunate that mediocrity can act only according to routine. Ability takes its flight unhindered.
Imagination rules the world.
Destiny urges me to a goal of which I am ignorant. Until that goal is attained I am invulnerable, unassailable. When Destiny has accomplished her purpose in me, a fly may suffice to destroy me.
The heart may be broken, and the soul remain unshaken.
As a rule it is circumstances that make men.
The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.
The mind improves by change of aliment. A diversity of reading pleases the imagination, as much as the diversity of sounds pleases the ear.
Lead the ideas of your time and they will accompany and support you; fall behind them and they drag you along with them; oppose them and they will overwhelm you.
I am never angry when contradicted, I seek to be enlightened.
A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.
The word impossible is not in my dictionary.
Variant: The word impossible is not French.
In politics, an absurdity is not a handicap.
It is not necessary to prohibit or encourage oddities of conduct which are not harmful.
When you have an enemy in your power, deprive him of the means of ever injuring you.
Necessity dominates inclination, will, and right.
Courage isn't having the strength to go on - it is going on when you don't have strength.
We must not obstinately contend against circumstances, but rather let us obey them. We have many projects in life but little determination.
Impatience is a great obstacle to success; he who treats everything with brusqueness gathers nothing, or only immature fruit which will never ripen.
A form of government that is not the result of a long sequence of shared experiences, efforts, and endeavors can never take root.
There are two levers for moving men - interest and fear.
Variant: There are only two forces that unite men - fear and interest.
A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him
He who is unmoved by tears has no heart.
Conscience is the most sacred thing among men.
The man fitted for affairs and authority never considers individuals, but things and their consequences.
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.
From triumph to downfall is but a step. I have seen a trifle decide the most important issues in the gravest affairs.
Our credulity is a part of the imperfection of our natures. It is inherent in us to desire to generalize, when we ought, on the contrary, to guard ourselves very carefully from this tendency.
Courage cannot be counterfeited. It is one virtue that escapes hypocrisy.
A great people may be killed, but they cannot be intimidated.
Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
The fool has one great advantage over a man of sense - he is always satisfied with himself.
We must take things as we find them, and not as we would wish them to be.
Work is the scythe of time.
From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.
A man who has no consideration for the needs of his men ought never to be given command.
The superior man is never in anyone's way.
