Napoleon Bonaparte quotes
1. 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.
2. Women are nothing but machines for producing children.
3. Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.
4. History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
5. If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.
6. Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.
7. 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.
8. A throne is only a bench covered with velvet.
9. There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
10. One must change one’s tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one’s superiority.
11. Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
12. Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.
13. A man cannot become an atheist merely by wishing it.
14. England is a nation of shopkeepers.
15. The best way to keep one’s word is not to give it.
16. A leader is a dealer in hope.
17. The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one’s self to destiny.
18. If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.
19. A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.
20. Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.
21. Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
22. If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.
23. The act of policing is, in order to punish less often, to punish more severely.
24. He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.
25. In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
26. Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.
27. It requires more courage to suffer than to die.
28. Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.
29. An army marches on its stomach.
30. Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.
31. A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.
32. If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.
33. It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.
34. Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.
35. When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.
36. The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies.
37. There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time.
38. The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.
39. I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.
40. 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.
41. Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.
42. 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.
43. The infectiousness of crime is like that of the plague.
44. There are only two forces that unite men – fear and interest.
45. You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy’s ranks.
46. The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind.
47. The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.
48. I made all my generals out of mud.
49. We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.
50. From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.
51. The human race is governed by its imagination.
52. Imagination rules the world.
53. 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.
54. Medicines are only fit for old people.
55. The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one’s designs to one’s means.
56. The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.
57. A true man hates no one.
58. Water, air, and cleanness are the chief articles in my pharmacy.
59. The French complain of everything, and always.
60. The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.
