dots-menu
×

Home  »  Dictionary of Quotations  »  Napoleon

James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.

Napoleon

A faithful friend is a true image of the Deity.

A great reputation is a great noise; the more there is made, the farther off it is heard.

A trade of barbarians.On war.

A true man hates no one.

C’est l’imagination qui gouverne le genre humain—The human race is governed by its imagination.

Chance is the providence of adventurers.

Character is victory organised.

Circumstances? I make circumstances.

Death may expiate faults, but it does not repair them.

Do you wish to find out the really sublime? Repeat the Lord’s Prayer.

Du haut de ces pyramides quarante siécles nous contemplent—From the height of these pyramids forty centuries look down on us.To his troops in Egypt.

Du sublime au ridicule il n’y a qu’un pas—There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Everything unnatural is imperfect.

“From the height of these pyramids forty centuries look down on you.”To his troops in Egypt.

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

Friendship is but a name.

Great ambition is the passion of a great character. He who is endowed with it may perform very good or very bad actions; all depends upon the principles which direct him.

Greatness is nothing unless it be lasting.

History is but a fable agreed on.

I made all my generals out of mud.

Il ne faut pas nous fâcher des choses passées—We should not trouble ourselves (Sc. fash) about things that are past.

Imagination rules the world.

“Impossible” n’est pas français—“Impossible” is not French.

Incidents ought not to govern policy; but policy, incidents.

Independence, like honour, is a rocky island without a beach.

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

“L’Europe m’ennuie”—“I am tired of Europe.”When he took the field against Russia.

La grande nation—The great nation.When General Bonaparte, of France.

Love is the occupation of an idle man, the amusement of a busy one, and the shipwreck of a sovereign.

Madness is the last stage of human debasement. It is the abdication of humanity. Better to die a thousand times!

Men are led by trifles.

Men are not so ungrateful as they are said to be. If they are often complained of, it generally happens that the benefactor claims more than he has given.

Merit, however inconsiderable, should be sought for and rewarded.

Music, of all the arts, has the greatest influence over the passions, and the legislator ought to give it the greatest encouragement.

Occupation is the scythe of Time.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

Respect the burden.

Revolutions are like the most noxious dungheaps, which bring into life the noblest vegetables.

Secrets travel fast in Paris.

The conscience is the inviolable asylum of the liberty of man.

The contagion of crime is like that of the plague.

The future destiny of the child is always the work of the mother.

The greatest ornament of an illustrious life is modesty and humility, which go a great way in the character even of the most exalted princes.

The only victory over love is flight.

The worse the man, the better the soldier; if soldiers be not corrupt, they ought to be made so.

There are two levers for moving men—interest and fear.

There is no class of men so difficult to be managed in a state, as those whose intentions are honest, but whose consciences are bewitched.

Tout soldat français porte dans sa giberne le bâton de maréchal de France—Every private in the French army carries a field-marshal’s baton in his knapsack.

Tragedy warms the soul, elevates the heart, can and ought to create heroes. In this sense, perhaps, France owes a part of her great actions to Corneille.

True heroism consists in being superior to the ills of life, in whatever shape they may challenge him to combat.

Truth alone wounds.

Vengeance has no foresight.

Victory belongs to the most persevering.

Voilà le soleil d’Austerlitz—That is the sun of Austerlitz.

War—the trade of barbarians, and the art of bringing the greatest physical force to bear on a single point.

Water, air, and cleanliness are the chief articles in my pharmacopœia.

When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary.

When I want any good bead-work done, I always choose a man, if suitable otherwise, with a long nose.

When I was happy I thought I knew men, but it was fated that I should know them in misfortune only.

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

You may do anything with bayonets except sit on them.

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

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