Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes

The future destiny of a child is always the work of the mother

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!

Let her sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.

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

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

Nothing is lost as long as courage remains

I have fought sixty battles, and I have learnt nothing which I did not know at the beginning.

Nothing makes the future look so rosy as to contemplate it through a glass of Chambertin.

A people which is able to say everything becomes able to do everything.

In a great nation, the majority are incapable of judging wisely of things.

When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation

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

It is not necessary to prohibit or encourage oddities of conduct which are not harmful.

I haven't known 6 days of happiness in my life.

It is in times of difficulty that great nations like great men display the whole energy of their character and become an object of admiration to posterity.

Men soon get tired of shedding their blood for the advantage of a few individuals, who think they amply reward the soldiers perils with the treasures they amass.

Since the discovery of printing, knowledge has been called to power, and power has been used to make knowledge a slave.

A faithful friend is the true image of the Deity.

The purely defensive is doomed to defeat.

Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.

To live, is to suffer; and the honest man is always fighting to be master of his own mind.

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

To command, you must first of all speak to the eyes.

War justifies everything.

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.

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

Un croquis vaut mieux qu

I want the whole of Europe to have one currency; it will make trading much easier.

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

The Turks can be killed, but they can never be conquered.

In war as in love, to bring matters to a close, you must get close together.

Revolutions are like the most noxious dungheaps, which bring into life the noblest vegetables.

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

The transition from the defensive to the offensive is one of the most delicate operations in war.

Wherever flowers cannot be reared, there man cannot live.

Secrets travel fast in Paris.

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

In war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one.

Rascality has limits; stupidity has not.

In war, men are nothing, one man is everything.

Unhappy the general who comes on the field of battle with a system.

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

But it is at home and not in public that one should wash ones dirty linen. [Fr., Car c'est en famille, ce n'est pas en public, qu'un lave son linge sale.]

Ambition never is in a greater hurry that I; it merely keeps pace with circumstances and with my general way of thinking.

Every private in the French army carries a Field Marshall wand in his knapsack.

There must be Religion. Otherwise the poor would murder the rich.

An aristocracy is the true support of a monarchy.

Surely in a matter of this kind we should endeavor to do something, that we may say that we have not lived in vain, that we may leave some impress of ourselves on the sands of time.

A magistrate is not a father; he must be just and severe. Only tyrants are fathers.

The life of a citizen is the property of his country.