Quotes By Napoleon Bonaparte

To understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty.

The greatest danger occurs at the moment of victory.

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

It's the unconquerable soul of man, and not the nature of the weapon he uses, that ensures victory.

In our time no one has the conception of what is great. It is up to me to show them.

Put your iron hand in a velvet glove.

The only victory over love is flight.

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

I have seen only you, I have admired only you, I desire only you.

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.

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

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

The art of war consists in bringing to bear with an inferior army a superiority of force at the point at which one attacks or is attacked.

The bayonet has always been the weapon of the brave and the chief tool of victory.

War is composed of nothing but accidents...there is but one favorable moment, the great art is to seize it.

War is waged only with vigor, decision, and unshaken will; one must not grope or hesitate.

Make war offensively; it is the sole means to become a great captain and to fathom the secrets of the art.

If courage is the first characteristic of the soldier, perseverance is the second.

The knowledge of higher leadership can only be acquired by the study of military history and actual experience. There are no hard and fast rules; everything depends on the plans of the general, the condition of the troops, the season of the year, and a thousand other circumstances, which have the effect that no one case will ever resemble another.

You must be a soldier, and then a soldier, and again a soldier; bivouac with your advance guard, be in the saddle night and day, march with your advance guard to have the latest information, or else stay in your harem. You make war like a satrap. Good God, is it from me that you have learned that? From me who, with an army of 200,000 men, am at the head of my skirmishers?