Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes
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If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.
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War must be made as intense and awful as possible in order to make it short, and thus to diminish its horrors.
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The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny.
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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.
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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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Throw off your worries when you throw off your clothes at night.
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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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A commander-in-chief cannot take as an excuse for his mistakes in warfare an order given by his sovereign or his minister when the person giving the order is absent from the field of operations and is imperfectly aware or wholly unaware of the latest state of affairs. It follows that any commander-in-chief who undertakes to carry out a plan which he considers defective is at fault; he must put forward his reasons, insist on the plan being changed, and finally tender his resignation rather than be the instrument of his army's downfall.
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Remember that a man, a true man, never hates. His rages and his bad moods never last beyond the present moment-like electric shocks.
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Parties weaken themselves by their fear of capable men.
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Republican despotism is more fertile in acts of tyranny, because everyone has a hand in it.
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An empty throne always tempts me.
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Once you have made up your mind, stick to it; there is no longer any 'if' or 'but'.
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Victory belongs to the most persevering.
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To have a right estimate of a man's character, we must see him in misfortune.
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The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.
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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.
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War is the business of barbarians.
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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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Neglect of duty does not cease, by repetition, to be neglect of duty.
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I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.
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You cannot stop me; I spend thirty thousand men a month.
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In politics... never retreat, never retract... never admit a mistake.
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If you know a country's geography, you can understand and predict its foreign policy.