Quotes from Napoleon Bonaparte

There shall be no Alps.

You don't govern men who don't have religion, you shoot them.

A general must be a charlatan.

Morality has nothing to do with such a man as I am.

There is no place in a fanatic's head where reason can enter.

Greatness is nothing unless it be lasting

A form of government that is not the result of a long sequence of shared experiences, efforts, and endeavors can never take root.

A cowardly act! What do I care about that? You may be sure that I should never fear to commit one if it were to my advantage.

A great reserve and severity of manners are necessary for the command of those who are older than ourselves.

Audacity succeeds as often as it fails; in life it has an even chance.

I hope before long to press you in my arms and shall shower on you a million burning kisses as under the Equator.

More glorious to merit a sceptre than to possess one.

True character stands the test of emergencies. Do not be mistaken, it is weakness from which the awakening is rude.

Those who receive the most images into their memories have the most lively imaginations.

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.

Qu'est ce que l'histoire, sinon une fable sur laquelle tout le monde est d'accord.

Lo imposible es el fantasma de los tímidos y el refugio de los cobardes.

The nature of strategy consists of always having, even with a weaker army, more forces at the point of attack or at the point where one is being attacked than the enemy.

What is a throne? — a bit of wood gilded and covered in velvet. I am the state— I alone am here the representative of the people. Even if I had done wrong you should not have reproached me in public—people wash their dirty linen at home. France has more need of me than I of France.

My maxim was, la carrière est ouverte aux talents, without distinction of birth or fortune.

The most difficult art is not in the choice of men, but in giving to the men chosen the highest service of which they are capable.

In war, theory is all right so far as general principles are concerned; but in reducing general principles to practice there will always be danger. Theory and practice are the axis about which the sphere of accomplishment revolves.

It is not that addresses at the opening of a battle make the soldiers brave. The old veterans scarcely hear them, and recruits forget them at the first boom of the cannon. Their usefulness lies in their effect on the course of the campaign, in neutralizing rumors and false reports, in maintaining a good spirit in the camp, and in furnishing matter for camp-fire talk. The printed order of the day should fulfill these different ends.

In Love, Victory goes to the man who runs away