Napoleon Bonaparte

Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.

A true man hates no one.

Courage is like love, it must have hope for nourishment.

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

Imagination rules the world.

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.

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.

A leader is a dealer in hope.

The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

History is a set of lies agreed upon.

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.

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.

I have only one counsel for you - be master.

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

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

Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.

If you wish to be a success in the world promise everything deliver nothing.

What is history but a fable agreed upon?

If you want a thing done well do it yourself.

An army marches on its stomach.

All religions have been made by men.

He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.

Throw off your worries when you throw off your clothes at night.

Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.

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

The people to fear are not those who disagree with you but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.

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

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.

Let the path be open to talent.

Forethought we may have undoubtedly but not foresight.

If I had to choose a religion the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.

The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue, courage is only the second virtue.

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

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

Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.

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

The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind.

The word impossible is not in my dictionary.

I can no longer obey, I have tasted command and I cannot give it up.

A celebrated people lose dignity upon a closer view.

War is the business of barbarians.

A throne is only a bench covered with velvet.

Women are nothing but machines for producing children.

Ambition never is in a greater hurry that I, it merely keeps pace with circumstances and with my general way of thinking.

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

The army is the true nobility of our country.

There are only two forces in the world the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.

A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.

Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.

The extent of your consciousness is limited only by your ability to love and to embrace with your love the space around you and all it contains.

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

It requires more courage to suffer than to die.

The herd seek out the great not for their sake but for their influence, and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.

There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

There is no such thing as accident, it is fate misnamed.

To do all that one is able to do is to be a man, to do all that one would like to do is to be a god.

Ability is nothing without opportunity.

One must change one's tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority.

The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.

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

In politics... never retreat never retract... never admit a mistake.

You must not fight too often with one enemy or you will teach him all your art of war.

A man cannot become an atheist merely by wishing it.

The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.

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

The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.

Respect the burden.

England is a nation of shopkeepers.

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

The human race is governed by its imagination.

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at and who steals what is most precious to men: time.

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

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

The French complain of everything and always.

A Constitution should be short and obscure.

The infectiousness of crime is like that of the plague.

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

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

Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.

With audacity one can undertake anything but not do everything.

When small men attempt great enterprises they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.

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.

I made all my generals out of mud.

Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.

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

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

The act of policing is in order to punish less often to punish more severely.

Death is nothing but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.

Glory is fleeting but obscurity is forever.

Medicines are only fit for old people.

The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.

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

The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos both his own and the enemies.

I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.

Soldiers generally win battles, generals get credit for them.

The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one's designs to one's means.

Victory belongs to the most persevering.

We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.

Riches do not consist in the possession of treasures but in the use made of them.

It is the cause not the death that makes the martyr.