Napoleon bonaparte quotes

Power is what they like - it is the greatest of all aphrodisiacs.

You don't reason with intellectuals. You shoot them.

A leader is a dealer in hope.

An order that can be misunderstood, will be misunderstood.

How many things apparently impossible have nevertheless been performed by resolute men who had no alternative but death.

Friends must always be treated as if one day they might be enemies.

Love is the occupation of the idle man, the amusement of a busy one, and the shipwreck of a sovereign.

Opportunities? I make opportunities.

Never awake me when you have good news to announce, because with good news nothing presses; but when you have bad news, arouse me immediately, for then there is not an instant to be lost.

Six hours' sleep for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a fool.

You can not lead a battle if you think you look silly on a horse.

The best way to make every one poor is to insist on equality of wealth.

The leader's role is to define reality, then give hope

Half of the people in the world are below average.

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.

The superior man is never in anyone's way.

Strong coffee, much strong coffee, is what awakens me. Coffee gives me warmth, waking, an unusual force and a pain that is not without very great pleasure.

The World is not ruined by the wickedness of the wicked, but by the weakness of the good.

If you know a country's geography, you can understand and predict its foreign policy.

Men who have changed the world never achieved their success by winning the chief citizens to their side, but always by stirring the masses.

The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.

The stupid speak of the past, the wise of the present, and fools of the future.

If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.

When people cease to complain, they cease to think.

There is only one thing in this world, and that is to keep acquiring money and more money, power and more power. All the rest is meaningless.

The world soffers a lot. Not because the violence of bad people. But because of the silence of the good people.

The Jews are the master robbers of the modern age.

The purpose of religion is to keep the poor from killing the rich.

The reason most people fail instead of succeed is they trade what they want most for what they want at the moment.

An army of lions commanded by a deer will never be an army of lions.

Imagination rules the world.

The art of being sometimes audacious and sometimes very prudent is the secret of success.

Strangers are just friends waiting to happen. To become a good man, one must have faithful friends, or outright enemies.

The greatest general is he who makes the fewest mistakes.

I base my calculation on the expectation that luck will be against me.

Act swiftly and vigorously, without 'buts' and 'ifs'.

Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.

The only way to lead people is to show them a future: a leader is a dealer in hope.

One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.

Never tell your enemy he is doing the wrong thing.

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

A man becomes the creature of his uniform.

To understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty.

The Mohammedan religion is the finest of all.

God is on the side with the best artillery

How can you have order in a state without religion? For, when one man is dying of hunger near another who is ill of surfeit, he cannot resign himself to this difference unless there is an authority which declares 'God wills it thus.' Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

To have a right estimate of a man's character, we must see him in misfortune.

A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.

A true man hates no one.

Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.

Victory is not always winning the battle...but rising every time you fall.

There are only two forces that unite men - fear and interest.

After making a mistake or suffering a misfortune, the man of genius always gets back on his feet.

Impatience is a great obstacle to success; he who treats everything with brusqueness gathers nothing, or only immature fruit which will never ripen.

You think you are too intelligent to believe in God. I am not like you.

War is ninety percent information.

Every hour of lost time is a chance of future misfortune.

Nature intended women to be our slaves. They are our property.

Moses has revealed the existence of God to his nation. Jesus Christ to the Roman world, Muhammad to the old continent.

It is not necessary to bury the truth. It is sufficient merely to delay it until nobody cares.

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.

Liberty is a need felt by a small class of people whom nature has endowed with nobler minds than the mass of men;.... Consequently, it may be repressed with impunity. Equality, on the other hand, pleases the masses.

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.

If you build an army of 100 lions and their leader is a dog, in any fight, the lions will die like a dog. But if you build an army of 100 dogs and their leader is a lion, all dogs will fight as a lion

Victory belongs to the most persevering.

They are the carrion birds of humanity...[speaking of the Jews] are a state within a state. They are certainly not real citizens...The evils of Jews do not stem from individuals but from the fundamental nature of these people.

My success and everything good that I have done, I owe to my mother.

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.

Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.

Arabia was idolatrous when, six centuries after Jesus, Muhammad introduced the worship of the God of Abraham, of Ishmael, of Moses, and Jesus. The Ariyans and some other sects had disturbed the tranquility of the east by agitating the question of the nature of the Father, the son, and the Holy Ghost. Muhammad declared that there was none but one God who had no father, no son and that the trinity imported the idea of idolatry.

One must change one's tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority.

Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederic. ... This is the only way to become a great general and master the secrets of the art of war.

The fool has one great advantage over a man of sense; he is always satisfied with himself.

Give me an educated mother, I shall promise you the birth of a civilized, educated nation

There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time.

If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.

If I were to give liberty to the press, my power could not last three days.

Until you spread your wings, you'll have no idea how far you can fly.

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.

Un croquis vaut mieux qu

Anarchy is the stepping stone to absolute power.

I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest.

The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.

France always has plenty men of talent, but it is always deficient in men of action and high character.

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.

Courage isn't having the strength to go on - it is going on when you don't have strength.

Riches do not consist in the possession of treasures, but in the use made of them.

On victory, you deserve beer. On defeat, you need it.

I hope the time is not far off when I shall be able to unite all the wise and educated men of all the countries and establish a uniform regime based on the principles of the Quran which alone are true and which alone can lead men to happiness.

Nothing is lost as long as courage remains

I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay their hands on everything they can get.

I see only my objective - the obstacles must give way.

The more I study the world, the more I am convinced of the inability of brute force to create anything durable.

Whatever you ardently and passionately desire, that you obtain.

The Bible is not merely a book-it is a living power. . . . Nowhere as in the Bible can be found such a series of beautiful ideas and admirable maxims which pose before us like the battalions of a celestial army. . . . The soul can never go astray while it has this book for its guide.

When you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna.

Lies circle the earth while Truth is still trying to put on its shoes.

You become strong by defying defeat and by turning loss into gain and failure to success.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

Courage cannot be counterfeited. It is one virtue that escapes hypocrisy.

I fear three newspapers more than a hundred thousand bayonets.

The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind.

In politics... never retreat, never retract... never admit a mistake.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

Terrorism, War & Bankruptcy are caused by the privatization of money, issued as a debt and compounded by interest.

Mankind's worst enemy is fear of work

Strategy is the art of making use of time and space. I am less concerned about the later than the former. Space we can recover, lost time never.

Impossible is the word found only in a fool's dictionary. Wise people create opportunities for themselves and make everything possible.

History is written by the winners.

A woman laughing is a woman conquered.

The amateurs discuss tactics: the professionals discuss logistics

Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.

The art of war is to gain time when your strength is inferior.

Great men are meteors designed to burn so that earth may be lighted.

Adversity is the midwife of genius

Envy is a declaration of inferiority.

The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.

I have so often been mistaken that I no longer blush for it

It requires more courage to suffer than to die.

Once you have made up your mind, stick to it; there is no longer any 'if' or 'but'.

No one but myself can be blamed for my fall. I have been my own greatest enemy-the cause of my own disastrous fate.

In war, as in prostitution, amateurs are often better than professionals.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.

The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.