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:
An army's effectiveness depends on its size, training, experience, and morale, and morale is worth more than any of the other factors combined.
Life is strewn with so many dangers, and can be the source of so many misfortunes, that death is not the greatest of them.
Men grow old quickly on the battlefield.
The true wealth of a state consists in the number of its inhabitants, in their toil and industry.
True heroism consists in being superior to the ills of life, in whatever shape they may challenge us to combat.
I am the successor, not of Louis XVI, but of Charlemagne.
At the head of an army, nothing is more becoming than simplicity.
I have made noise enough in the world already, perhaps too much, and am now getting old, and want retirement.
True character stands the test of emergencies. Do not be mistaken, it is weakness from which the awakening is rude.
Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.
War is 90% information.
War is a serious game in which a man risks his reputation, his troops, and his country. A sensible man will search himself to know whether or not he is fitted for the trade.
It is the business of cavalry to follow up the victory, and to prevent the beaten army from rallying.
The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.
The bayonet has always been the weapon of the brave and the chief tool of victory
All generals, officers, and soldiers who capitulate in battle to save their own lives should be decimated.
In war one must lean on an obstacle in order to overcome it.
Among so many conflicting ideas and so many different perspectives, the honest man is confused and distressed and the skeptic becomes wicked ... Since one must take sides, one might as well choose the side that is victorious, the side which devastates, loots, and burns. Considering the alternative, it is better to eat than to be eaten.
Battles are lost or won in 15 minutes
In war, as in love, we must come into contact before we triumph.
England is a nation of shopkeepers.
Ordinary men died, men of iron were taken prisoner: I only brought back with me men of bronze.
God has decreed that there be sick and poor in this world, but in the next it will be the other way around.
Remember that a man, a true man, never hates. His rages and his bad moods never last beyond the present moment-like electric shocks.
A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him
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.
International incidents must not be allowed to shape foreign policy, foreign policy must shape the incidents.
It is in times of difficulty that great nations like great men display the whole energy of their character and become an object of admiration to posterity.
The purely defensive is doomed to defeat.
Even when I am gone, I shall remain in people's minds the star of their rights, my name will be the war cry of their efforts, the motto of their hopes.
The gospel is not a book; it is a living being, with an action, a power, which invades every thing that opposes its extension, behold! It is upon this table: This book, surpassing all others. I never omit to read it, and every day with some pleasure.
In the eyes of empire builders men are not men but instruments.
It is only with prudence, sagacity, and much dexterity that great aims are accomplished, and all obstacles surmounted. Otherwise nothing is accomplished.
The basic principle that we must follow in directing the armies of the Republic is this: that they must feed themselves on war at the expense of the enemy territory.
A faithful friend is the true image of the Deity.
Nothing is more arrogant than the weakness which feels itself supported by power.
Morality for the upper classes, the gallows for the rabbles.
Whatever shall we do in that remote spot? Well, we will write our memoirs. Work is the scythe of time.
The poor man commands respect; the beggar must always excite anger.
Called to the throne by the voice of the people, my maxim has always been: A career open to talent without distinction of birth. It is this system of equality for which the European oligarchy detests me
Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.
It's the people who are in the wrong who get angry.
Good intelligence is nine-tenths of any battle.
History is the invention of historians.
How many seemingly impossible things have been accomplished by resolute men because they had to do, or die?
In a conquered country benevolence is not humanitarianism. It is a general political axiom that a conqueror must not inspire a good opinion of his benevolence until he has demonstrated that he can be severe with malefactors.
For the stability of the Government, the people should have a considerable voice in the elections.
Never depend on the multitude, full of instability and whims; always take precautions against it.
A general-in-chief should ask himself several times in the day, What if the enemy were to appear now in my front, or on my right, or my left?
God has given me the will and the force to overcome all obstacles.
I pay attention only to what people do or say. I never pay attention to what they think.
He who is unmoved by tears has no heart.
An aristocracy is the true support of a monarchy.
We are born, we live, we die among supernatural.
Occupation is the scythe of time.
Orders and decorations are necessary in order to dazzle the people.
Brave deeds are the monuments of brave men.
Ability has nothing to do with opportunity.
A man becomes the creature of his uniform.
The transition from the defensive to the offensive is one of the most delicate operations in war.
Until then, mio dolce amor, a thousand kisses; but give me none in return, for they set my blood on fire.
In war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one.
Peoples of Egypt , you will be told that I have come to destroy your religion. Do not believe it! Reply that I have come to restore your rights!
Courage cannot be counterfeited. It is one virtue that escapes hypocrisy.
Put a rogue in the limelight and he will act like an honest man.
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.
A prince should suspect everything.
A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.
Men are never attached to you by favours.
Circumstances-what are circumstances? I make circumstances
Revolutions are like the most noxious dungheaps, which bring into life the noblest vegetables.
In war the simplest manoeuvres are the best.
In war, men are nothing, one man is everything.
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.
In our time no one has the conception of what is great. It is up to me to show them.