Napoleon Quotes

I feel myself driven towards an end that I do not know. As soon as I shall have reached it, as soon as I shall become unnecessary, an atom will suffice to shatter me. Till then, not all the forces of mankind can do anything against me.

You Frenchmen, not content with having robbed us of everything we held dear, have also corrupted our character. The actual condition of my country, and the impossibility of changing it, is another reason for escaping from an earth, where I am obliged to praise men from a sense of duty, whom I must hate from a sense of virtue. When I arrive in my fatherland, what attitude am I to hold—what language am I to use? A good patriot ought to die when his fatherland has ceased to exist. If the deliverance of my fellow-countrymen depended upon the death of a single man, I would go immediately and plunge the sword which would avenge my country and its violated laws into the breast of tyrants.

The bullet that will kill me is not yet cast.

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

All authority is in the throne; and what is the throne? This wooden frame covered with velvet? No, I am the throne.

You wish to sail a ship up stream by lighting a fire under its decks, I have no time for such nonsense.

A general must be a charlatan.

There are in the world, two powers. The sword and the spirit. The spirit has always vanquished the sword.

Maximes et pensées de Napoléon recueillies par J.-L. Gaudy jeune (1838), Pg 49

Impossible is in the dictionary of fools

Never tell your enemy he is doing the wrong thing.

When I lost my way, I was accustomed to throw the reins on his neck, and he always discovered places where I, with all my observation and boasted superior knowledge, could not.
-Napoléon Bonaparte about his horse Marengo

The superior man is never in anyone's way.

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

Imagination rules the world.