“Imagination rules the world.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Secondary source“Everything tells me I shall succeed.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Primary source“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 Disputed“Success is the most convincing talker in the world.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“War is a lottery in which nations ought to risk nothing but small amounts.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“The secret of great battles consists in knowing how to deploy and concentrate at the right time.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“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 Disputed“Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“Coolness is the greatest quality in a man destined to command.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“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 Disputed“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 Disputed“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 Disputed“A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“Death is a dreamless sleep.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“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 Disputed“A Prince, criticised by his subjects, should never attempt to justify himself to them.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“A new-born government must dazzle.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“In France, only the impossible is admired.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“Men who hesitate never succeed in their undertakings.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“The best way to keep one’s word is not to give it.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“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 Disputed“Nothing augments a battalion like success.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“Courage cannot be counterfeited. It is one virtue that escapes hypocrisy.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“The man who practices virtue only in the hope of gaining reputation, is toying with vice.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“There is a joy in danger.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte Disputed“How many seemingly impossible things have been accomplished by resolute men because they had to do, or die.”
— Napoleon Bonaparte DisputedT. E. Lawrence Thomas Edison Theodore Roosevelt Helen Keller Richard Feynman