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Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes

Emperor of the French
Born On
1769-08-15
Died On
1821-05-05
Birth Place
Ajaccio
Death Place
Longwood
Birth Sign
leo
Father
Carlo Buonaparte
Mother
Letizia Ramolino
Spouse
Duchess of Parma, Marie Louise, Joséphine de Beauharnais
Nationality
French

Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.

Napoleon Bonaparte

A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.

Napoleon Bonaparte

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

Napoleon Bonaparte

If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.

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

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

Napoleon Bonaparte

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.

Napoleon Bonaparte

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

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

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

Napoleon Bonaparte

If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.

Napoleon Bonaparte

A leader is a dealer in hope.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Women are nothing but machines for producing children.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

Napoleon Bonaparte

There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.

Napoleon Bonaparte

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

Napoleon Bonaparte

Victory belongs to the most persevering.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.

Napoleon Bonaparte

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

Napoleon Bonaparte

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.

Napoleon Bonaparte

One must change one's tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority.

Napoleon Bonaparte

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

Napoleon Bonaparte

Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Water, air, and cleanness are the chief articles in my pharmacy.

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 throne is only a bench covered with velvet.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.

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

Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Imagination rules the world.

Napoleon Bonaparte

The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.

Napoleon Bonaparte

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

Napoleon Bonaparte

I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.

Napoleon Bonaparte

There are only two forces that unite men - fear and interest.

Napoleon Bonaparte

An army marches on its stomach.

Napoleon Bonaparte

The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them.

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

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

Napoleon Bonaparte

Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.

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

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

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

Napoleon Bonaparte

Ability is nothing without opportunity.

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

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

He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.

Napoleon Bonaparte

A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.

Napoleon Bonaparte

The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.

Napoleon Bonaparte

In politics... never retreat, never retract... never admit a mistake.

Napoleon Bonaparte

It requires more courage to suffer than to die.

Napoleon Bonaparte

The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.

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

I have only one counsel for you - be master.

Napoleon Bonaparte

From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.

Napoleon Bonaparte

It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.

Napoleon Bonaparte

A true man hates no one.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

Napoleon Bonaparte

France has more need of me than I have need of France.

Napoleon Bonaparte

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

Napoleon Bonaparte

If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.

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

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

Napoleon Bonaparte

Men take only their needs into consideration - never their abilities.

Napoleon Bonaparte

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

Napoleon Bonaparte

You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy's ranks.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Throw off your worries when you throw off your clothes at night.

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

A Constitution should be short and obscure.

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

Respect the burden.

Napoleon Bonaparte

The army is the true nobility of our country.

Napoleon Bonaparte

War is the business of barbarians.

Napoleon Bonaparte

All religions have been made by men.

Napoleon Bonaparte

The infectiousness of crime is like that of the plague.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.

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

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

With audacity one can undertake anything, but not do everything.

Napoleon Bonaparte

The French complain of everything, and always.

Napoleon Bonaparte

A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.

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

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

Napoleon Bonaparte

A celebrated people lose dignity upon a closer view.

Napoleon Bonaparte

I am the successor, not of Louis XVI, but of Charlemagne.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.

Napoleon Bonaparte

A man cannot become an atheist merely by wishing it.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Riches do not consist in the possession of treasures, but in the use made of them.

Napoleon Bonaparte

I made all my generals out of mud.

Napoleon Bonaparte

England is a nation of shopkeepers.

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