Quotes from Napoleon Bonaparte

Women are nothing but machines for producing children.

England is a nation of shopkeepers.

We are made weak both by idleness and distrust of ourselves. Unfortunate, indeed, is he who suffers from both. If he is a mere individual he becomes nothing; if he is a king he is lost.

The love of glory is like the bridge that Satan built across Chaos to pass from Hell to Paradise: glory links the past with the future across a bottomless abyss. Nothing to my son, except my name!

All great events hang by a hair. The man of ability takes advantage of everything and neglects nothing that can give him a chance of success; whilst the less able man sometimes loses everything by neglecting a single one of those chances.

As a rule it is circumstances that make men.

The laws of circumstance are abolished by new circumstances.

It is only by prudence, wisdom, and dexterity, that great ends are attained and obstacles overcome. Without these qualities nothing succeeds.

Never depend on the multitude, full of instability and whims; always take precautions against it.

He who cannot look over a battlefield with a dry eye, causes the death of many men uselessly.

It is not true that men never change; they change for the worse, as well as for the better. It is not true they are ungrateful; more often the benefactor rates his favors higher than their worth; and often too he does not allow for circumstances. If few men have the moral force to resist impulses, most men do carry within themselves the germs of virtues as well as of vices, of heroism as well as of cowardice. Such is human nature — education and circumstances do the rest.

Lead the ideas of your time and they will accompany and support you; fall behind them and they drag you along with them; oppose them and they will overwhelm you.

Variety made the Revolution. Liberty was just a pretext.

Of all the peoples of Europe, Spaniards disgust me the least.

We frustrate many designs against us by pretending not to see them.

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.

Orders and decorations are necessary in order to dazzle the people.

One is more certain to influence men, to produce more effect on them, by absurdities than by sensible ideas.

In politics nothing is immutable. Events carry within them an invincible power. The unwise destroy themselves in resistance. The skillful accept events, take strong hold of them and direct them.

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.

It is a mistake, too, to say that the face is the mirror of the soul. The truth is, men are very hard to know, and yet, not to be deceived, we must judge them by their present actions, but for the present only.

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.

You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bonfire under her decks? I have no time for such nonsense.