Famous Quotes By Napoleon Bonaparte

 

1. A leader is a dealer in hope.
2. A picture is worth a thousand words.
3. A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.
4. All religions have been made by men.
5. Courage is like love it must have hope for nourishment.
6. Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
7. Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.
8. Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
9. 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.
10. He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.
11. History is a set of lies agreed upon.
12. History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.
16. If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.
17. If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.
18. Imagination rules the world.
19. In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
20. In politics... never retreat, never retract... never admit a mistake.
21. It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.
22. It requires more courage to suffer than to die.
23. Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.
24. Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.
25. Men take only their needs into consideration - never their abilities.
26. Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.
27. One must change one's tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority.
28. One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.
29. Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.
30. Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
31. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
32. Respect the burden.
33. Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.
34. Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.
35. The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.
36. The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.
37. The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue courage is only the second virtue.
38. The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one's designs to one's means.
39. The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.
40. The human race is governed by its imagination.
41. 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.
42. The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind.
43. The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.
44. There are only two forces that unite men - fear and interest.
45. There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time.
46. 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.
47. War is the business of barbarians.
48. What is history but a fable agreed upon?
49. When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.
50. Women are nothing but machines for producing children.
51. You must not fear death, my lads defy him, and you drive him into the enemy's ranks.
52. You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.