30 Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), also known as Napoleon I, was a French military leader and emperor who conquered much of Europe in the early 19th century. Born on the island of Corsica, Napoleon rapidly rose through the ranks of the military during the French Revolution (1789-1799). After seizing political power in France in a 1799 coup d’état, he crowned himself emperor in 1804. Shrewd, ambitious and a skilled military strategist, Napoleon successfully waged war against various coalitions of European nations and expanded his empire. However, after a disastrous French invasion of Russia in 1812, Napoleon abdicated the throne two years later and was exiled to the island of Elba. In 1815, he briefly returned to power in his Hundred Days campaign. After a crushing defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, he abdicated once again and was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena, where he died at 51.
- “The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.”
- “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.”
- “From triumph to downfall there is but one step. I have noted that, in the most momentous occasions, mere nothings have always decided the outcome of the greatest events.”
- “Women are nothing but machines for producing children.”
- “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!”
- “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.”
- “England is a nation of shopkeepers.”
- “The laws of circumstance are abolished by new circumstances.”
- “As a rule it is circumstances that make men.”
- “He who cannot look over a battlefield with a dry eye, causes the death of many men uselessly.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “Of all the peoples of Europe, Spaniards disgust me the least.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
- “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.”
- “The fool has one great advantage over a man of sense — he is always satisfied with himself.”
- “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.”
- “We frustrate many designs against us by pretending not to see them.”
- “If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.”
- “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.”
- “Orders and decorations are necessary in order to dazzle the people.”
- “There shall be no Alps.”
- “One is more certain to influence men, to produce more effect on them, by absurdities than by sensible ideas.”
- “Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.”
- “Morality has nothing to do with such a man as I am.”
- “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.”
