Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.
A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.
History is a set of lies agreed upon.
If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.
Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.
There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.
Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.
A leader is a dealer in hope.
Women are nothing but machines for producing children.
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
There is no such thing as accident; it is fate misnamed.
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
What is history but a fable agreed upon?
Victory belongs to the most persevering.
Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.
You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.
He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.
Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.
Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.
One must change one's tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority.
There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.
Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.
Water, air, and cleanness are the chief articles in my pharmacy.
The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies.
A throne is only a bench covered with velvet.
Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.
The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.
Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.
Imagination rules the world.
The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.
The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.
I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.
There are only two forces that unite men - fear and interest.
An army marches on its stomach.
The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.
Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.
Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them.
In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.
If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god.
Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.
The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided. It is sometimes better to abandon one's self to destiny.
The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.
The strong man is the one who is able to intercept at will the communication between the senses and the mind.
Ability is nothing without opportunity.
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.
The extent of your consciousness is limited only by your ability to love and to embrace with your love the space around you, and all it contains.
He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.
A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.
The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.
In politics... never retreat, never retract... never admit a mistake.
It requires more courage to suffer than to die.
The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.
A revolution can be neither made nor stopped. The only thing that can be done is for one of several of its children to give it a direction by dint of victories.
I have only one counsel for you - be master.
From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.
It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.
A true man hates no one.
Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.
Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
France has more need of me than I have need of France.
When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my eyes.
If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.
Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.
I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.
The act of policing is, in order to punish less often, to punish more severely.
Men take only their needs into consideration - never their abilities.
When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.
You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy's ranks.
Throw off your worries when you throw off your clothes at night.
Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.
A Constitution should be short and obscure.
Ambition never is in a greater hurry than I; it merely keeps pace with circumstances and with my general way of thinking.
Respect the burden.
The army is the true nobility of our country.
War is the business of barbarians.
All religions have been made by men.
The infectiousness of crime is like that of the plague.
Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.
To do all that one is able to do, is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do, is to be a god.
It is my wish that my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people, whom I have loved so well.
With audacity one can undertake anything, but not do everything.
The French complain of everything, and always.
A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.
There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time.
One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.
A celebrated people lose dignity upon a closer view.
I am the successor, not of Louis XVI, but of Charlemagne.
Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.
A man cannot become an atheist merely by wishing it.
Riches do not consist in the possession of treasures, but in the use made of them.
I made all my generals out of mud.
England is a nation of shopkeepers.
We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.
The battle of Austerlitz is the grandest of all I have fought.
The human race is governed by its imagination.
