Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes
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In a battle, as in a siege, the art consists in concentrating very heavy fire on a particular point. The line of battle once established, the one who has the ability to concentrate an unlooked for mass of artillery suddenly and unexpectedly on one of these points is sure to carry the day.
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Liberty and equality are magical words.
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Do you know what amazes me more than anything else? The impotence of force to organize anything.
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Republican despotism is more fertile in acts of tyranny, because everyone has a hand in it.
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Called to the throne by the voice of the people, my maxim has always been: A career open to talent without distinction of birth. It is this system of equality for which the European oligarchy detests me.
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Men are led by trifles.
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Large legislative bodies resolve themselves into coteries, and coteries into jealousies.
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If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.
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Generals who save troops for the next day are always beaten.
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You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bonfire under her decks? I have no time for such nonsense.
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Better to have a known enemy than a forced ally.
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In war, groping tactics, half-way measures, lose everything.
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Europe is a molehill. All great empires and revolutions have been on the Orient; six hundred millions live there.
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Courage isn't having the strength to go on - it is going on when you don't have strength.
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The merit of Mahomet is that he founded a religion without an inferno.
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As for myself, I do not believe that such a person as Jesus Christ ever existed; but as the people are inclined to superstition, it is proper not to oppose them.
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Diplomacy is the police in grand costume.
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Those who failed to oppose me, who readily agreed with me, accepted all my views, and yielded easily to my opinions, were those who did me the most injury, and were my worst enemies, because, by surrendering to me so easily, they encouraged me to go too far... I was then too powerful for any man, except myself, to injure me.
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An aristocracy is the true support of a monarchy.
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He who is unmoved by tears has no heart.
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It is not by whining that one carries out the job of king.
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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.
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Mankind are in the end always governed by superiority of intellectual faculties, and none are more sensible of this than the military profession. When, on my return from Italy, I assumed the dress of the Institute, and associated with men of science, I knew what I was doing: I was sure of not being misunderstood by the lowest drummer boy in the army.
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I engage and after that I see what to do.