Napoleon Quotes

I have fought sixty battles and I have learned nothing which I did not know at the beginning.

Muhammad was a prince; he rallied his compatriots around him. In a few years, the Muslims conquered half of the world. They plucked more souls from false gods, knocked down more idols, razed more pagan temples in fifteen years than the followers of Moses and Jesus did in fifteen centuries. Muhammad was a great man. He would indeed have been a god, if the revolution that he had performed had not been prepared by the circumstances.

Muhammad was a great man, an intrepid soldier; with a handful of men he triumphed at the battle of Bender (sic); a great captain, eloquent, a great man of state, he revived his fatherland and created a new people and a new power in the middle of Arabia.

The Mohammedan religion is the finest of all

Mahomet was a great man, an intrepid soldier; with a handful of men he triumphed at the battle of Bender [sic]; a great captain, eloquent, a great man of state, he revived his fatherland and created a new people and a new power in the middle of Arabia.

I ought to have died at Waterloo

J'aurais dû mourir à Waterloo

Religions are all founded on miracles — on things we cannot understand, such as the Trinity. Jesus calls himself the Son of God, and yet is descended from David. I prefer the religion of Mahomet — it is less ridiculous than ours.

What then is, generally speaking, the truth of history? A fable agreed upon.

I may have had many projects, but I never was free to carry out any of them. It did me little good to be holding the helm; no matter how strong my hands, the sudden and numerous waves were stronger still, and I was wise enough to yield to them rather than resist them obstinately and make the ship founder. Thus I never was truly my own master but was always ruled by circumstances.

Charles Tristan, marquis de Montholon: Récits de la captivité de l'empereur Napoléon a Sainte-Hélène, Pg 384

Je n'ai point usurpé la couronne: je l'ai relevée dans le ruisseau. Le peuple l'a mise sur ma tête. Je voulais que le titre de Français fut le plus beau, le plus désirable de la terre. J'étais enfin le roi du peuple, comme les Bourbons sont les rois des nobles

I did not usurp the crown. I picked it up from the gutter; the people placed it on my head. I was king of the people as the Bourbons are kings of the nobles

The Princes of this house have abandoned their capital, not like soldiers of honour who cede to the circumstances and setbacks of the war, but like the perjured who are pursued by their own remorse.

I generally had to give in.