Napoleon Quotes

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.

Women are nothing but machines for producing children.

England is a nation of shopkeepers.

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.

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!

The laws of circumstance are abolished by new circumstances.

As a rule it is circumstances that make men.

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.

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

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.

Variety made the Revolution. Liberty was just a pretext.

The fool has one great advantage over a man of sense — he is always satisfied with himself.