Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes

The heart may be broken, and the soul remain unshaken.

Lies circle the earth while Truth is still trying to put on its shoes.

There is a joy in danger.

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

Half of the people in the world are below average.

Cossacks are the best light troops among all that exist. If I had them in my army, I would go through all the world with them.

I drink Champagne when I win, to celebrate...and I drink Champagne when I lose, to console myself.

Great men are never cruel without necessity.

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

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

My enemies make appointments at my tomb.

I have only one counsel for you - be master.

A man becomes the creature of his uniform.

I treat policies like war. I hoodwink one flank so as to trounce the other. In my family we kneel only to God.

Without cavalry, battles are without result.

A good sketch is better than a long speech.

That man made me miss my destiny.

Insubordination may only be the evidence of a strong mind.

War is the business of barbarians.

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

Over-preparation is the foe of inspiration.

The secret of great battles consists in knowing how to deploy and concentrate at the right time.

Whatever you ardently and passionately desire, that you obtain.

Generals who save troops for the next day are always beaten.

A soul you say? Give my pocketwatch to a savage and he'll think it has a soul.

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

One is more certain to influence men, to produce more effect on them, by absurdities than by sensible ideas.

In war, as in politics, no evil - even if it is permissible under the rules - is excusable unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything beyond that is a crime.

I cannot believe there is a god who punishes and rewards, for I see honest folk unlucky, and rogues unlucky.

A society without religion is like a vessel without compass.

Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.

Mankind's worst enemy is fear of work

War must be made as intense and awful as possible in order to make it short, and thus to diminish its horrors.

Time is the great art of man.

Ordinarily men exercise their memory much more than their judgment.

Providence is always on the side of the last reserve.

Space we can recover; time never.

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

Nothing is so contrary to military rules as to make the strength of your army known, either in the orders of the day, in proclamations, or in the newspapers.

Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.

In order not to be astonished at obtaining victories, one ought not to think only of defeats.

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

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

A great reputation is a great noise, the more there is of it, and the further does it swell. Land, monuments, Nations, all fall, but the noise remains, and will reach to other generations.

A general must be a charlatan.

The greatest danger occurs at the moment of victory

The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one's designs to one's means.

A starving army is actually worse than none.

The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. Criminals collected together corrupt each other. They are worse than ever when, at the termination of their punishment, they return to society.

In my youth I, too, entertained some illusions; but I soon recovered from them.