Quotes By Napoleon Bonaparte

Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.

A man cannot become an atheist merely by wishing it.

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.

Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.

If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.

Imagination rules the world.

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.

When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my eyes.

I made all my generals out of mud.

A revolution can be neither made nor stopped. The only thing that can be done is for one of several of its children to give it a direction by dint of victories.

A true man hates no one.

Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.

Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.

A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.

One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.

Men take only their needs into consideration - never their abilities.

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.

I am the successor, not of Louis XVI, but of Charlemagne.

In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.

There are only two forces that unite men - fear and interest.

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

Water, air, and cleanness are the chief articles in my pharmacy.

You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy's ranks.

Respect the burden.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.

France has more need of me than I have need of France.

From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.

Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.