Quotes from Napoleon Bonaparte

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

I start out by believing the worst

There is a joy in danger.

Success is the most convincing talker in the world.

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

A revolution is an idea, taken up by bayonets.

An army marches on its stomach.

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

I know he's a good general, but is he lucky?

Un bon croquis vaut mieux qu'un long discours (A good sketch is better than a long speech)

Nothing is lost as long as courage remains

Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.

War is the business of barbarians.

To write history one must be more than a man, since the author who holds the pen of this great justiciary must be free from all preoccupation of interest or vanity.

What is the government? Nothing, unless supported by opinion.

If the art of war were nothing but the art of avoiding risks, glory would become the prey of mediocre minds.... I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest.

When you have an enemy in your power, deprive him of the means of ever injuring you.

One must learn to forgive and not to hold a hostile, bitter attitude of mind, which offends those about us and prevents us from enjoying ourselves; one must recognize human shortcomings and adjust himself to them rather than to be constantly finding fault with them.

The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.

There are so many laws that no one is safe from hanging.

Ordinarily men exercise their memory much more than their judgment.

Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.

I make my battle plans from the spirit of my sleeping soldiers

One must indeed be ignorant of the methods of genius to suppose that it allows itself to be cramped by forms. Forms are for mediocrity, and it is fortunate that mediocrity can act only according to routine. Ability takes its flight unhindered.