Napoleon Quotes

The English have no exaulted sentiments. They can all be bought.

What a beautiful fix we are in now; peace has been declared.

In the last analysis, one must be a military man in order to govern. It is only with boot and spurs that one can govern a horse.

Equality should be the chief basis of the education of youth.

Kiss the feet of Popes provided their hands are tied.

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

Men, in general, are but great children.

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

The great difficulty with politics is, that there are no established principles.

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

When you have resolved to fight a battle, collect your whole force. Dispense with nothing. A single battalion sometimes decides the day.

A king is sometimes obliged to commit crimes; but they are the crimes of his position.

It is easier to brave and threaten, than to conquer an enemy.

If you want to get on in this world make many promises, but don't keep them.

Unavailable wars are always just.

Leaders deal in hope.

France needs nothing so much to promote her regeneration as good mothers.

The people excited by ambitious demagogues, sooner or later return into the hands of the Aristocracy.

The allies we gain by victory will turn against us upon the bare whisper of our defeat.

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

Men are lead by trifles.

In politics nothing is immutable. Events carry within them an invincible power.

Every means should be taken to attach the soldier to his colours.

I generally had to give in.

Being in the Tuileries is not everything: what matters is to stay here.

France is invaded; I am leaving to take command of my troops, and, with God's help and their valor, I hope soon to drive the enemy beyond the frontier.

I do not amuse myself by thinking of dead people.

Soldiers! Forty centuries behold you!

In war, character and opinion make more than half of the reality.

Conquests will come and go but Delambre's work will endure.

An army must have but one line of operations. This must be maintained with care and abandoned only for major reasons.

A fool is only troublesome, a pedant insupportable.

Every French soldier carriers a marshal's baton in his knapsack.

Soldiers! Here is the battle you have so long desired! Henceforth victory depends on you; we have need of it.

War is cruel to the people, and terrible to the conquered.

Parties weaken themselves by their fear of capable men.

I have doubtless erred more or less in politics, but a crime I never committed.

The law, that is what makes men stay honest.

Power is founded upon opinion.

Fanaticism must be put to sleep before it can be eradicated.

One might as well try to charge through a wall.

The art of land warfare is an art of genius, of inspiration. On the sea nothing is genius or inspiration; everything is positive or empiric.

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

Whatever misanthropists may say, ingrates and the perverse are exceptions in the human species.

France will always be a great nation.

The unwilling soldier will do anything to fight for a useless fabric piece of ribbon.

Immortality is the best recollection one leaves.

War is a lottery in which nations ought to risk nothing but small amounts.

History is a myth that men agree to believe.

There is no strength without justice.