Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes
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The laws of circumstance are abolished by new circumstances.
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It is easy to know when a government wishes for peace by observing the character of the person sent to negotiate for it.
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Leave the Artillerymen alone, they are an obstinate lot.
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God has decreed that there be sick and poor in this world, but in the next it will be the other way around.
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You cannot treat with all the world at once.
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I have noticed in every campaign that I have fought-that there is a key segment of time, somewhere between 13 and 15 minutes in which the battle is won or lost. I focus on that segment of time, and I win.
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The Concordat is not the victory of any one party but the consolidation of all.
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Artillery is more essential to cavalry than to infantry, because cavalry has no fire for its defence, but depends on the sabre.
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Being in the Tuileries is not everything: what matters is to stay here.
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Courage cannot be counterfeited. It is one virtue that escapes hypocrisy.
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War is not at all such a difficult art as people think. . . . In reality it would seem that he is vanquished who is afraid of his adversary and the the whole secret lies in that.
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You cannot drag a man's conscience before any tribunal, and no one is answerable for his religious opinions to any power on earth.
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Agriculture is the soul and chief support of empires; industry produces riches and the happiness of the people; exportation represents the superabundance, and good use of both.
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When Monarchs abuse the rights with which they have been invested by the confidence of the people, and bring down upon their heads the calamity of war, the people have the right to withdraw their allegiance.
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A people that is able to say everything, becomes able to do everything. The crowd which follows me with admiration, would run with the same eagerness were I marching to the Guillotine.
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There are certain things in war of which the commander alone comprehends the importance. Nothing but his superior firmness and ability can subdue and surmount all difficulties.
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Across a chasm of eighteen hundred years, Jesus Christ makes a demand which is beyond all others difficult to satisfy; He asks for that which a philosopher may often seek in vain at the hands of his friends, or a father of his children, or a bride of her spouse, or a man of his brother. He asks for the human heart; He will have it entirely to Himself. He demands it unconditionally; and forthwith His demand is granted. Wonderful!
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Alexander, Charlemagne and myself all tried to found an empire on force and we failed. Jesus Christ is building an empire on love, and today there are millions of people who would gladly die for His sake.
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The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile.
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Fools have a great advantage over the wise; they are always self-satisfied.
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The art of war is to gain time when your strength is inferior.
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Men have their virtues and their vices, their heroisms and their perversities; men are neither wholly good nor wholly bad, but possess and practice all that there is of good and bad here below. Such is the general rule. Temperament, education, the accidents of life, are modifying factors. Outside of this, everything is ordered arrangement, everything is chance. Such has been my rule of expectation and it has usually brought me success.
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Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
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In war you see your own troubles; those of the enemy you cannot see. You must show confidence.