Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes
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Republican despotism is more fertile in acts of tyranny, because everyone has a hand in it.
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The only conquests that are permanent and leave no regrets are our conquests over ourselves.
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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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Morality for the upper classes, the gallows for the rabbles.
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Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.
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Two armies are two bodies which meet and try to frighten each other.
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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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True heroism consists in rising superior to misfortune.
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The fate of a Nation may sometimes depend upon the position of a fortress.
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I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires, and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and whatever other religions the distance of infinity.
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Nothing renders a nation so despicable as religious despotism.
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All the scholastic scaffolding falls, as a ruined edifice, before a single word: faith.
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My enemies make appointments at my tomb.
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There are two merits that glorify a person: being courageous for a man and being virtuous for a woman. Besides these two, there is another merit that glorifies both man and woman: so much loving the homeland to an extent with being ready to sacrifice his/her life, if needed. Turks are such courageous and virtuous people. That is why you can kill a Turk but you can never defeat them.
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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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Nothing makes the future look so rosy as to contemplate it through a glass of Chambertin.
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Men soon get tired of shedding their blood for the advantage of a few individuals, who think they amply reward the soldiers perils with the treasures they amass.
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Between a battle lost and a battle won, the distance is immense and there stand empires.
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High politic is only common sense applied to great things.
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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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We are made weak both by idleness and distrust of ourselves. Unfortunate, indeed, is he who suffers from both. If he is a mere individual he becomes nothing; if he is a king he is lost.
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The art of land warfare is an art of genius, of inspiration. On the sea nothing is genius or inspiration; everything is positive or empiric.
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A woman laughing is a woman conquered.
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It is not by whining that one carries out the job of king.