“There is nothing in war, which I cannot do by my own hands. If there is nobody to make gunpowder, I can manufacture it. The guncarriages I know how to construct. If it is necessary to make cannons at the forge, I can make them. The details of working them in battle, if it is necessary to teach, I shall teach them. In administration, it is I alone who have arranged the finances, as you know.”
Napoleon Bonaparte (unverified)
Quoted by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay Success. No primary Napoleonic source has been identified, and it should be treated as an attribution reported by Emerson.
This quote is commonly attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, but I have not been able to locate a primary source. Use with caution in academic or professional contexts.
“That is just it, work is my element; I was born and made for it. I have found the limits of my legs; I have found the limits of my eyes; but I have never been able to find the limits of my labour.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“Everything tells me I shall succeed.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified)“Imagination rules the world.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“Intelligence precedes force. Force itself is nothing without intelligence. In the heroic age the leader was the strongest man; with civilization he has become the most intelligent of the brave.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)More quotes by Napoleon Bonaparte →
“The years teach much which the days never know.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (verified)“Grief too will make us idealists.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson (verified)“War is a lottery in which nations ought to risk nothing but small amounts.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“Spanish girls make wonderful wives. I’ve never had one so I know.”
— Ernest Hemingway (verified)