Best quotes by Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte
French military and political leader
Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars. He was the de facto leader of the French Republic as First Consul from 1799 to 1804. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814 and again in 1815. Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars. He won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, building a large empire that ruled over continental Europe before its final collapse in 1815. He was one of the greatest military commanders in history, and his wars and campaigns are studied in military schools worldwide. Napoleon's political and cultural legacy has endured, and he has been one of the most celebrated and controversial leaders in world history.
Napoleon was born on the island of Corsica not long after its annexation by the Kingdom of France, and his family "occupied that social penumbra encompassing the haute bourgeoisie and the very minor nobility." He supported the French Revolution in 1789 while serving in the French army, and tried to spread its ideals to his native Corsica. He rose rapidly in the Army after he saved the governing French Directory by firing on royalist insurgents. In April 1796, he began his first military campaign against the Austrians and their Italian allies, scoring a series of decisive victories and becoming a national hero. Two years later, he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a springboard to political power. He engineered a coup in November 1799 and became First Consul of the Republic. Intractable differences with the British meant that the French were facing the War of the Third Coalition by 1805. Napoleon shattered this coalition with decisive victories in the Ulm Campaign, and a historic triumph at the Battle of Austerlitz, which led to the dissolving of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1806, the Fourth Coalition took up arms against him because Prussia became worried about growing French influence on the continent. Napoleon quickly knocked out Prussia at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt, then marched the Grande Armée deep into Eastern Europe, annihilating the Russians in June 1807 at Friedland, and forcing the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to accept the Treaties of Tilsit. Two years later, the Austrians challenged the French again during the War of the Fifth Coalition, but Napoleon solidified his grip over Europe after triumphing at the Battle of Wagram.
Hoping to extend the Continental System (his embargo against Britain), Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula and declared his brother Joseph the King of Spain in 1808. The Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support in the Peninsular War, which lasted six years, featured brutal guerrilla warfare, and culminated in a defeat for Napoleon's marshals. Napoleon launched an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the catastrophic retreat of Napoleon's Grande Armée and encouraged his enemies. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in a Sixth Coalition against France. A chaotic military campaign culminated in a large coalition army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813. The coalition invaded France and captured Paris, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April 1814. He was exiled to the island of Elba, between Corsica and Italy. Meanwhile, in France, the Bourbons were restored to power. However, Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France, "without spilling a drop of blood" as he wished. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which ultimately defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. The British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died in 1821 at the age of 51. Napoleon had an extensive impact on the modern world, bringing liberal reforms to the numerous territories that he conquered and controlled, especially the Low Countries, Switzerland, and large parts of modern Italy and Germany. He implemented fundamental liberal policies in France and throughout Western Europe.
Napoleon Bonaparte quotes by category:
In war, character and opinion make more than half of the reality.
True wisdom for a general is vigorous determination.
Ability is of little account without opportunity. I have very rarely met with two o'clock in the morning courage: I mean instantaneous courage.
Soldiers! Forty centuries behold you!
I do not amuse myself by thinking of dead people.
The most constant, the most powerful, and the most generous of all my enemies.
France is invaded; I am leaving to take command of my troops, and, with God's help and their valor, I hope soon to drive the enemy beyond the frontier.
I shall be an Attila to Venice.
Wherever wood can swim, there I am sure to find this flag of England.
France needs nothing so much to promote her regeneration as good mothers.
In politics nothing is immutable. Events carry within them an invincible power.
The people excited by ambitious demagogues, sooner or later return into the hands of the Aristocracy.
The allies we gain by victory will turn against us upon the bare whisper of our defeat.
Being in the Tuileries is not everything: what matters is to stay here.
Every means should be taken to attach the soldier to his colours.
We frustrate many designs against us by pretending not to see them.
The best generals are those who have served in the artillery.
I generally had to give in.
To imagine that it is possible to perform great military deeds without fighting is just empty dreams.
Men are lead by trifles.
If you (to General Bertrand) do not perceive that Jesus Christ is God, very well; then I did wrong to make you a general.
There are two kinds of fidelity, that of dogs and that of cats; you, gentleman, have the fidelity of cats who never leave the house.
Leaders deal in hope.
Fashion condemns us to many follies, the greatest is to make oneself its slave.
Unavailable wars are always just.
It is easier to brave and threaten, than to conquer an enemy.
If you want to get on in this world make many promises, but don't keep them.
Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure whether they have it till the test comes. And those having it in one test never know for sure if they will have it when the next test comes.
A king is sometimes obliged to commit crimes; but they are the crimes of his position.
Rashness succeeds often, still more often fails.
When you have resolved to fight a battle, collect your whole force. Dispense with nothing. A single battalion sometimes decides the day.
The affairs of war, like the destiny of battles, as well as empires, hang upon a spiders thread.
A leader has the right to be beaten, but never the right to be surprised.
After me, the Revolution - or, rather the ideas which formed it - will resume their course. It will be like a book from which the marker is removed, and one starts to read again at the page where one left off.
All the scholastic scaffolding falls, as a ruined edifice, before a single word: faith.
I made all my generals out of mud.
The great difficulty with politics is, that there are no established principles.
A man cannot become an atheist merely by wishing it.
Nothing makes the future look so rosy as to contemplate it through a glass of Chambertin.
Clearly, the pleasures wines afford are transitory - but so are those of the ballet, or of a musical performance. Wine is inspiring and adds greatly to the joy of living.
A throne is only a bench covered with velvet.
The infectiousness of crime is like that of the plague.
Equality should be the chief basis of the education of youth.
In the last analysis, one must be a military man in order to govern. It is only with boot and spurs that one can govern a horse.
What a beautiful fix we are in now; peace has been declared.
Age, habits of business and experience have modified many characters.
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!
The Allied Powers having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon is the sole obstacle to the re-establishment of peace in Europe, he, faithful to his oath, declares that he is ready to descend from the throne, to quit France, and even to relinquish life, for the good of his country.
I closed the gulf of anarchy and brought order out of chaos. I rewarded merit regardless of birth or wealth, wherever I found it. I abolished feudalism and restored equality to all regardless of religion and before the law. I fought the decrepit monarchies of the Old Regime because the alternative was the destruction of all this. I purified the Revolution.
The English have no exaulted sentiments. They can all be bought.
Better to have a known enemy than a forced ally.
Surely in a matter of this kind we should endeavor to do something, that we may say that we have not lived in vain, that we may leave some impress of ourselves on the sands of time.
The best medicine against the grapes of wrath is a whiff of grapeshot
France always has plenty men of talent, but it is always deficient in men of action and high character.
If you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna.
It is rare that a legislature reasons. It is too quickly impassioned.
The heart of a statesman should be in his head.
My waking thoughts are all of thee. Your portrait and the remembrance of last night's delirium have robbed my senses of repose. Sweet and incomparable Josephine, what an extraordinary influence you have over my heart. Are you vexed? Do I see you sad? Are you ill at ease? My soul is broken with grief, and there is no rest for your lover.
Give me a man with a good allowance of nose,... when I want any good head-work done I choose a man - provided his education has been suitable - with a long nose.
Do you know what is more hard to bear than the reverses of fortune? It is the baseness, the hideous ingratitude, of man.
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.
Obedience to public authority ought not to be based either on ignorance or stupidity.
It is cowardly to commit suicide. The English often kill themselves. It is a malady caused by the humid climate.
All men of genius, and all those who have gained rank in the republic of letters, are brothers, whatever may be the land of their nativity.
If I always appear prepared, it is because before entering an undertaking, I have meditated long and have foreseen what might occur. It is not genius which reveals to me suddenly and secretly what I should do in circumstances unexpected by others; it is thought and preparation
The populace judges of the power of God by the power of the priests.
High politic is only common sense applied to great things.
In tragedy great men are more truly great than in history. We see them only in the crises which unfold them.
Better live a King, than a Prince.
I don't employ Talleyrand when I want a thing done, but only when I want to have the appearance of wanting to do it.
From triumph to downfall is but a step. I have seen a trifle decide the most important issues in the gravest affairs.
Let the path be open to talent.
Medicines are only fit for old people.
The nature of Christ is, I grant it, from one end to another, a web of mysteries; but this mysteriousness does not correspond to the difficulties which all existence contains. Let it be rejected, and the whole world is an enigma; let it be accepted, and we possess a wonderful explanation of the history of man.
Give me enough ribbons to place on the tunics of my soldiers and I can conquer the world.