Top 867 Quotes & Sayings by Napoleon Bonaparte - Page 3

You become strong by defying defeat and by turning loss into gain and failure to success.

Impossible is the word found only in a fool's dictionary. Wise people create opportunities for themselves and make everything possible.

Anarchy is the stepping stone to absolute power.

Half of the people in the world are below average.

How many things apparently impossible have nevertheless been performed by resolute men who had no alternative but death.

History is written by the winners.

Impatience is a great obstacle to success; he who treats everything with brusqueness gathers nothing, or only immature fruit which will never ripen.

The world soffers a lot. Not because the violence of bad people. But because of the silence of the good people.

There is only one thing in this world, and that is to keep acquiring money and more money, power and more power. All the rest is meaningless.

After making a mistake or suffering a misfortune, the man of genius always gets back on his feet.

Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.

Six hours' sleep for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a fool.

This soldier, I realized, must have had friends at home and in his regiment; yet he lay there deserted by all except his dog. I looked on, unmoved, at battles which decided the future of nations. Tearless, I had given orders which brought death to thousands. Yet here I was stirred, profoundly stirred, stirred to tears. And by what? By the grief of one dog. Napoleon Bonaparte, on finding a dog beside the body of his dead master, licking his face and howling, on a moonlit field after a battle. Napoleon was haunted by this scene until his own death.

An army of lions commanded by a deer will never be an army of lions.

Never awake me when you have good news to announce, because with good news nothing presses; but when you have bad news, arouse me immediately, for then there is not an instant to be lost.

The amateurs discuss tactics: the professionals discuss logistics

To understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty.

I see only my objective - the obstacles must give way.

When people cease to complain, they cease to think.

I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay their hands on everything they can get.

To have a right estimate of a man's character, we must see him in misfortune.

How can you have order in a state without religion? For, when one man is dying of hunger near another who is ill of surfeit, he cannot resign himself to this difference unless there is an authority which declares 'God wills it thus.' Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

Men who have changed the world never achieved their success by winning the chief citizens to their side, but always by stirring the masses.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Whatever you ardently and passionately desire, that you obtain.

The fool has one great advantage over a man of sense; he is always satisfied with himself.

Strategy is the art of making use of time and space. I am less concerned about the later than the former. Space we can recover, lost time never.

Give me an educated mother, I shall promise you the birth of a civilized, educated nation

The Jews are the master robbers of the modern age.

Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederic. ... This is the only way to become a great general and master the secrets of the art of war.

Nothing is lost as long as courage remains

No one but myself can be blamed for my fall. I have been my own greatest enemy-the cause of my own disastrous fate.

God is on the side with the best artillery

In war, as in prostitution, amateurs are often better than professionals.

Arabia was idolatrous when, six centuries after Jesus, Muhammad introduced the worship of the God of Abraham, of Ishmael, of Moses, and Jesus. The Ariyans and some other sects had disturbed the tranquility of the east by agitating the question of the nature of the Father, the son, and the Holy Ghost. Muhammad declared that there was none but one God who had no father, no son and that the trinity imported the idea of idolatry.

The stupid speak of the past, the wise of the present, and fools of the future.

If I were to give liberty to the press, my power could not last three days.

Once you have made up your mind, stick to it; there is no longer any 'if' or 'but'.

Friends must always be treated as if one day they might be enemies.

A woman laughing is a woman conquered.

Moses has revealed the existence of God to his nation. Jesus Christ to the Roman world, Muhammad to the old continent.

Every hour of lost time is a chance of future misfortune.

Adversity is the midwife of genius

I fear three newspapers more than a hundred thousand bayonets.

You can not lead a battle if you think you look silly on a horse.

Love is the occupation of the idle man, the amusement of a busy one, and the shipwreck of a sovereign.

Die young, and I shall accept your death-but not if you have lived without glory, without being useful to your country, without leaving a trace of your existence: for that is not to have lived at all.

You think you are too intelligent to believe in God. I am not like you.

The Bible is not merely a book-it is a living power. . . . Nowhere as in the Bible can be found such a series of beautiful ideas and admirable maxims which pose before us like the battalions of a celestial army. . . . The soul can never go astray while it has this book for its guide.

Never tell your enemy he is doing the wrong thing.

Liberty is a need felt by a small class of people whom nature has endowed with nobler minds than the mass of men;.... Consequently, it may be repressed with impunity. Equality, on the other hand, pleases the masses.

Great men are meteors designed to burn so that earth may be lighted.

One must learn to forgive and not to hold a hostile, bitter attitude of mind, which offends those about us and prevents us from enjoying ourselves. One must recognize human shortcomings and adjust himself to them rather than to be constantly finding fault with them.

Mankind's worst enemy is fear of work

The greatest general is he who makes the fewest mistakes.

Terrorism, War & Bankruptcy are caused by the privatization of money, issued as a debt and compounded by interest.

An order that can be misunderstood, will be misunderstood.

On victory, you deserve beer. On defeat, you need it.

I hope the time is not far off when I shall be able to unite all the wise and educated men of all the countries and establish a uniform regime based on the principles of the Quran which alone are true and which alone can lead men to happiness.

The Mohammedan religion is the finest of all.