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:
Collective crimes incriminate no one.
A man who has no consideration for the needs of his men ought never to be given command.
Wherever flowers cannot be reared, there man cannot live.
Human life is the only thing that takes care of itself.
If you wage war, do it energetically and with severity. This is the only way to make it shorter and consequently less inhuman.
All religions have been made by men.
In order not to be astonished at obtaining victories, one ought not to think only of defeats.
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.
I drink Champagne when I win, to celebrate...and I drink Champagne when I lose, to console myself.
Do you know what astonished me the most in this world? The inability of force to create anything.
Men soon get tired of shedding their blood for the advantage of a few individuals, who think they amply reward the soldiers perils with the treasures they amass.
When you have an enemy in your power, deprive him of the means of ever injuring you.
Let her sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.
That man made me miss my destiny.
What are the conditions that make for the superiority of an army? Its internal organization, military habits in officers and men, the confidence of each in themselves; that is to say, bravery, patience, and all that is contained in the idea of moral means.
Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.
I start out by believing the worst
A battle sometimes decides everything; and sometimes the most trifling thing decides the fate of a battle.
It is an ambassador's duty to stand up for his nation's foreign policy in any era and under any government whatsoever. Ambassadors are, in the full meaning of the term, titled spies.
There is no power without justice.
If the Earth were a single state, Istanbul would be its capital.
A soul you say? Give my pocketwatch to a savage and he'll think it has a soul.
Nothing is so important in war as an undivided command.
It is necessary for the heart to feel as for the body to be fed.
There is only one favorable moment in war; talent consists in knowing how to seize it.
An army which cannot be regularly recruited is a doomed army.
More glorious to merit a sceptre than to possess one.
The man fitted for affairs and authority never considers individuals, but things and their consequences.
I would believe any religion that could prove it had existed since the beginning of the world. But when I see Socrates, Plato, Moses, and Mohammed I do not think there is such a one. All religions owe their origin to man.
In time of revolution, with perseverance and courage, a soldier should think nothing impossible.
Soldiers win battles and generals get the medals.
Malice delights to blacken the characters of prominent men.
The first quality of a soldier is constancy in enduring fatigue and hardship. Courage is only the second. Poverty privation and want are the school of the good soldier.
The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.
The Turks can be killed, but they can never be conquered.
True heroism consists in rising superior to misfortune.
There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.
An army marches on its stomach.
The worse the troops the greater the need of artillery.
The greatest ornament of an illustrious life is modesty and humility, which go a great way in the character even of the most exalted princes.
In a great nation, the majority are incapable of judging wisely of things.
Unhappy the general who comes on the field of battle with a system.
The first quality of the commander-in-chief is a cool head to receive a correct impression of things. He should not allow himself to be confused by either good or bad news.
Bloodletting is among the ingredients of political medicine.
No amount of money will induce someone to lay down their life, but they will gladly do so for a bit of yellow ribbon.
It would be a joke if the conduct of the victor had to be justified to the vanquished.
I feel myself driven towards an end that I do not know. As soon as I shall have reached it, as soon as I shall become unnecessary, an atom will suffice to shatter me. Till then, not all the forces of mankind can do anything against me.
Those who failed to oppose me, who readily agreed with me and accepted all my views, were those who did me the most injury.
Man will believe anything, as long as it's not in the bible.
A mathematician of the first rank, Laplace quickly revealed himself as only a mediocre administrator; from his first work we saw that we had been deceived. Laplace saw no question from its true point of view; he sought subtleties everywhere; had only doubtful ideas, and finally carried the spirit of the infinitely small into administration.
I cannot believe there is a god who punishes and rewards, for I see honest folk unlucky, and rogues unlucky.
We may stop ourselves when going up, never when coming down.
A commander in chief ought to say to himself several times a day: If the enemy should appear on my front, on my right, on my left, what would I do? And if the question finds him uncertain, he is not well placed, he is not as he should be, and he should remedy it.
The greatest danger occurs at the moment of victory
A people which is able to say everything becomes able to do everything.
Democracy, if it is reasonable, limits itself to giving everyone an equal opportunity to compete and to obtain.
I treat policies like war. I hoodwink one flank so as to trounce the other. In my family we kneel only to God.
Washington is dead! This great man fought against Tyranny; he established the liberty of his country. His memory will always be dear to the French people, as it will be to all free men of the two worlds; and especially to French soldiers, who, like him and the American soldiers, have combated for liberty and equality.
Nothing is so contrary to military rules as to make the strength of your army known, either in the orders of the day, in proclamations, or in the newspapers.
Society cannot exist without inequality of fortunes and the inequality of fortunes could not subsist without religion. Whenever a half-starved person is near another who is glutted, it is impossible to reconcile the difference if there is not an authority who tells him to.
We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.
My enemies make appointments at my tomb.
In war, the moral element and public opinion are half the battle.
It is neither holy, Roman or an empire.
The only victories which leave no regret are those which are gained over ignorance.
Do not talk to me of goodness, of abstract justice, of nature law. Necessity is the highest law, public welfare is the highest justice.
Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them.
I have so often been mistaken that I no longer blush for it
All the great captains have performed vast achievements by conforming with the rules of art--by adjusting efforts to obstacles.
Vengeance has no foresight.
Destiny urges me to a goal of which I am ignorant. Until that goal is attained I am invulnerable, unassailable. When Destiny has accomplished her purpose in me, a fly may suffice to destroy me.
The keys of a fortress are always well worth the retirement of the garrison when it is resolved to yield only on those conditions. On this principle it is always wiser to grant an honorable capitulation to a garrison which has made a vigorous resistance than to risk an assault.
Ability is nothing without opportunity.
Suicide is a crime the most revolting to the feelings; nor does any reason suggest itself to our understanding by which it can be justified. It certainly originates in that species of fear which we denominate poltroonery. For what claim can that man have to courage who trembles at the frowns of fortunes? True heroism consists in being superior to the ills of life in whatever shape they may challenge him to combat.
Ordinarily men exercise their memory much more than their judgment.