Quotes from Napoleon Bonaparte

In war, luck is half in everything.

In order not to be astonished at obtaining victories, one ought not to think only of defeats.

To plan to reserve cavalry for the finish of the battle, is to have no conception of the power of combined infantry and cavalry charges, either for attack or for defense.

A man who has no consideration for the needs of his men ought never to be given command.

In war, groping tactics, half-way measures, lose everything.

In war, character and opinion make more than half of the reality.

In war one must lean on an obstacle in order to overcome it.

War is a lottery in which nations ought to risk nothing but small amounts.

Gentleness, good treatment, honor the victor and dishonor the vanquished, who should remain aloof and owe nothing to pity In war, audacity is the finest calculation of genius.

Policy and morals concur in repressing pillage.

The most desirable quality in a soldier is constancy in the support of fatigue; valor is only secondary.

The art of war consists in being always able, even with an inferior army, to have stronger forces than the enemy at the point of attack or the point which is attacked.

There is only one favorable moment in war; talent consists in knowing how to seize it.

Never march by flank in front of an army in position. This principle is absolute.

An army ought to be ready every moment to offer all the resistance of which it is capable.

The moment of greatest peril is the moment of victory.

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.

Send me 300 francs; that sum will enable me to go to Paris. There, at least, one can cut a figure and surmount obstacles. Everything tells me I shall succeed. Will you prevent me from doing so for the want of 100 crowns?

If I had to have a religion, I should adore the sun, for it is the sun that fertilizes everything.

All celebrated people lose dignity upon close inspection.

Independence, like honor, is a rocky island without a beach.

Necessity dominates inclination, will, and right.

All systems of morality are fine. The gospel alone has exhibited a complete assemblage of the principles of morality, divested of all absurdity. It is not composed, like your creed, of a few common-place sentences put into bad verse. Do you wish to see that which is really sublime? Repeat the Lord's Prayer.

Every French soldier carries a marshal's baton in his knapsack.