Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Napoleon Bonaparte. Here they are! All 100 of them:

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Courage isn't having the strength to go on - it is going on when you don't have strength.
Napoléon Bonaparte
In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.
Napoléon Bonaparte
History is a set of lies agreed upon.
Napoléon Bonaparte
History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon?
Dan Brown (The da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2))
Imagination governs the world.
Napoléon Bonaparte
If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.
Napoléon Bonaparte
History is written by the winners.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action comes, stop thinking and go in.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.
Napoléon Bonaparte
A leader is a dealer in hope.
Napoléon Bonaparte
If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.
Napoléon Bonaparte
The only victories which leave no regret are those which are gained over ignorance.
Napoléon Bonaparte
A woman laughing is a woman conquered.
Napoléon Bonaparte (In the Words of Napoleon: A Collection of Quotations of Napoleon Bonaparte (English and French Edition))
You don't reason with intellectuals. You shoot them.
Napoléon Bonaparte (Napoleon's Memoirs)
Men are Moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.
Napoléon Bonaparte
The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Conquests will come and go but Delambre's work will endure.
Napoléon Bonaparte
There are but two powers in the world, the sword and the mind. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the mind
Napoléon Bonaparte
The reason most people fail instead of succeed is they trade what they want most for what they want at the moment.
Napoléon Bonaparte
He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.
Napoléon Bonaparte
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.
Napoléon Bonaparte
A picture is worth a thousand words.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.
Napoléon Bonaparte
It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Circumstances-what are circumstances? I make circumstances
Napoléon Bonaparte
Ability is of little account without opportunity.
Napoléon Bonaparte
As for me, to love you alone, to make you happy, to do nothing which would contradict your wishes, this is my destiny and the meaning of my life.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Throw off your worries when you throw off your clothes at night.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Victory belongs to the most persevering.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets..
Napoléon Bonaparte
Never tell your enemy he is doing the wrong thing.
Napoléon Bonaparte
History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
Napoléon Bonaparte
The surest way to remain poor is to be honest.
Napoléon Bonaparte
The hand that gives is among the hand that takes. Money has no fatherland, financiers are without patriotism and without decency, their sole object is gain.
Napoléon Bonaparte
To understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Great men are meteors designed to burn so that earth may be lighted.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
Napoléon Bonaparte
A true man hates no one.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
Napoléon Bonaparte
When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.
Napoléon Bonaparte
The greatest danger occurs at the moment of victory
Napoléon Bonaparte
Courage is like love, it must have hope for nourishment.
Napoléon Bonaparte
If we could read the past histories of all our enemies we would disregard all hostility for them.
Napoléon Bonaparte
It's the unconquerable soul of man, and not the nature of the weapon he uses, that ensures victory
Napoléon Bonaparte
Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.
Napoléon Bonaparte
A throne is only a bench covered with velvet.
Napoléon Bonaparte
In our time no one has the conception of what is great. It is up to me to show them.
Napoléon Bonaparte
The extent of your consciousness is limited only by your ability to love and to embrace with your love the space around you, and all it contains.
Napoléon Bonaparte (Napoleon's Art of War)
The only victory over love is flight.
Napoléon Bonaparte
It requires more courage to suffer than to die.
Napoléon Bonaparte
I have seen only yoU, I have admired only yoU, I desire only You
Napoléon Bonaparte
The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies
Napoléon Bonaparte
I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay hands on everything they can get.
Napoléon Bonaparte
We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.
Napoléon Bonaparte
If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.
Napoléon Bonaparte
I start out by believing the worst
Napoléon Bonaparte
There is a joy in danger.
Napoléon Bonaparte
What is history but a fable agreed upon?
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle
Success is the most convincing talker in the world.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Impossible is the word found only in a fool's dictionary. Wise people create opportunities for themselves and make everything possible...
Napoléon Bonaparte
Give me enough medals and I’ll win you any war
Napoléon Bonaparte (Napoleon's Art of War)
A revolution is an idea, taken up by bayonets.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Courage cannot be counterfeited. It is one virtue that escapes hypocrisy.
Napoléon Bonaparte
An army marches on its stomach.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Nothing is lost as long as courage remains
Napoléon Bonaparte
Napoleon, when hearing about Laplace's latest book, said, 'M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its creator.' Laplace responds, 'Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là. (I had no need of that hypothesis.)
Pierre-Simon Laplace
I know he's a good general, but is he lucky?
Napoléon Bonaparte
Un bon croquis vaut mieux qu'un long discours (A good sketch is better than a long speech)
Napoléon Bonaparte
War is the business of barbarians.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.
Napoléon Bonaparte
If the art of war were nothing but the art of avoiding risks, glory would become the prey of mediocre minds.... I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest.
Napoléon Bonaparte
To write history one must be more than a man, since the author who holds the pen of this great justiciary must be free from all preoccupation of interest or vanity.
Napoléon Bonaparte
When you have an enemy in your power, deprive him of the means of ever injuring you.
Napoléon Bonaparte
What is the government? Nothing, unless supported by opinion.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Ordinarily men exercise their memory much more than their judgment.
Napoléon Bonaparte
[Wise men] have tried to understand our state of being, by grasping at its stars, or its arts, or its economics. But, if there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.
Charles Fort (Lo! (Cosimo Classics))
I make my battle plans from the spirit of my sleeping soldiers
Napoléon Bonaparte
There are so many laws that no one is safe from hanging.
Napoléon Bonaparte
The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.
Napoléon Bonaparte
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.
Napoléon Bonaparte
Women are nothing but machines for producing children.
Napoléon Bonaparte
England is a nation of shopkeepers.
Napoléon Bonaparte
The laws of circumstance are abolished by new circumstances.
Napoléon Bonaparte
As a rule it is circumstances that make men.
Napoléon Bonaparte
The love of glory is like the bridge that Satan built across Chaos to pass from Hell to Paradise: glory links the past with the future across a bottomless abyss. Nothing to my son, except my name!
Napoléon Bonaparte (The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection of His Written and Spoken Words)
It is only by prudence, wisdom, and dexterity, that great ends are attained and obstacles overcome. Without these qualities nothing succeeds.
Napoléon Bonaparte
He who cannot look over a battlefield with a dry eye, causes the death of many men uselessly.
Napoléon Bonaparte
One must learn to forgive and not to hold a hostile, bitter attitude of mind, which offends those about us and prevents us from enjoying ourselves; one must recognize human shortcomings and adjust himself to them rather than to be constantly finding fault with them.
Napoléon Bonaparte
One must indeed be ignorant of the methods of genius to suppose that it allows itself to be cramped by forms. Forms are for mediocrity, and it is fortunate that mediocrity can act only according to routine. Ability takes its flight unhindered.
Napoléon Bonaparte
All great events hang by a hair. The man of ability takes advantage of everything and neglects nothing that can give him a chance of success; whilst the less able man sometimes loses everything by neglecting a single one of those chances.
Napoléon Bonaparte
This society [Jesuits] has been a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution, or Napoleon's despotism or ideology. It has obstructed the progress of reformation and the improvement of the human mind in society much longer and more fatally. {Letter to Thomas Jefferson, November 4, 1816. Adams wrote an anonymous 4 volume work on the destructive history of the Jesuits}
John Adams (The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson & Abigail & John Adams)
I have often noticed that nationalism is at its strongest at the periphery. Hitler was Austrian, Bonaparte Corsican. In postwar Greece and Turkey the two most prominent ultra-right nationalists had both been born in Cyprus. The most extreme Irish Republicans are in Belfast and Derry (and Boston and New York). Sun Yat Sen, father of Chinese nationalism, was from Hong Kong. The Serbian extremists Milošević and Karadžić were from Montenegro and their most incendiary Croat counterparts in the Ustashe tended to hail from the frontier lands of Western Herzegovina.
Christopher Hitchens (Hitch 22: A Memoir)