Top 867 Quotes & Sayings by Napoleon Bonaparte - Page 2
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a French statesman Napoleon Bonaparte.
Last updated on November 22, 2024.
The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.
I am the successor, not of Louis XVI, but of Charlemagne.
The French complain of everything, and always.
Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.
When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.
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.
Medicines are only fit for old people.
Riches do not consist in the possession of treasures, but in the use made of them.
You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy's ranks.
A man cannot become an atheist merely by wishing it.
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.
The human race is governed by its imagination.
Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.
War is the business of barbarians.
He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.
I have only one counsel for you - be master.
Respect the burden.
A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.
Men take only their needs into consideration - never their abilities.
One must change one's tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority.
The act of policing is, in order to punish less often, to punish more severely.
Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.
A celebrated people lose dignity upon a closer view.
The battle of Austerlitz is the grandest of all I have fought.
When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my eyes.
Let the path be open to talent.
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.
All religions have been made by men.
One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.
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.
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.
France has more need of me than I have need of France.
I made all my generals out of mud.
The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny.
The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one's designs to one's means.
Ambition never is in a greater hurry than I; it merely keeps pace with circumstances and with my general way of thinking.
England is a nation of shopkeepers.
With audacity one can undertake anything, but not do everything.
We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.
A Constitution should be short and obscure.
The army is the true nobility of our country.
The infectiousness of crime is like that of the plague.
Throw off your worries when you throw off your clothes at night.
The purpose of religion is to keep the poor from killing the rich.
If you build an army of 100 lions and their leader is a dog, in any fight, the lions will die like a dog. But if you build an army of 100 dogs and their leader is a lion, all dogs will fight as a lion
The only way to lead people is to show them a future: a leader is a dealer in hope.
I base my calculation on the expectation that luck will be against me.
You don't reason with intellectuals. You shoot them.
It is not necessary to bury the truth. It is sufficient merely to delay it until nobody cares.
Courage isn't having the strength to go on - it is going on when you don't have strength.
Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can fly.
The reason most people fail instead of succeed is they trade what they want most for what they want at the moment.
Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him.
War is ninety percent information.
Un croquis vaut mieux qu
The World is not ruined by the wickedness of the wicked, but by the weakness of the good.
The best way to make every one poor is to insist on equality of wealth.
Envy is a declaration of inferiority.
Victory is not always winning the battle...but rising every time you fall.
The art of being sometimes audacious and sometimes very prudent is the secret of success.