“Imagination rules the world.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“Everything tells me I shall succeed.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified)“Nothing augments a battalion like success.”
— 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)“A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (unverified)“The keys of a fortress are worth the liberty of its garrison when it has resolved not to surrender itself. Thus it is always more advantageous to grant honorable terms of capitulation to a garrison which has shown a vigorous resistance, than to risk the chances of an assault.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“Men who hesitate never succeed in their undertakings.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“War is a lottery in which nations ought to risk nothing but small amounts.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“The man who practices virtue only in the hope of gaining reputation, is toying with vice.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“Success is the most convincing talker in the world.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“Coolness is the greatest quality in a man destined to command.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“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)“The division of labor, which has brought such perfection in mechanical industries, is altogether fatal when applied to productions of the mind. All work of the mind is superior in proportion as the mind that produces it is universal.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“In France, only the impossible is admired.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“A new-born government must dazzle.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“There is a joy in danger.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“The best way to keep one’s word is not to give it.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“How many seemingly impossible things have been accomplished by resolute men because they had to do, or die.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“A Prince, criticised by his subjects, should never attempt to justify himself to them.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“Courage cannot be counterfeited. It is one virtue that escapes hypocrisy.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“Lead the ideas of your time and they will accompany and support you; fall behind them and they drag you along with them; oppose them and they will overwhelm you.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“The secret of great battles consists in knowing how to deploy and concentrate at the right time.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“Impatience is a great obstacle to success; he who treats everything with brusqueness gathers nothing, or only immature fruit which will never ripen.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“Death is a dreamless sleep.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (verified, secondary source)“All great events hang by a hair. The man of ability takes advantage of everything and neglects nothing that can give him a chance of success; whilst the less able man sometimes loses everything by neglecting a single one of those chances.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte (unverified)Thomas Edison Helen Keller Richard Feynman Charlie Munger Ayn Rand