Napoleon Bonaparte Men Quotations

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

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

Men, in general, are but great children.

The nature of Christ's existence is mysterious, I admit; but this mystery meets the wants of man. Reject it, and the world is an inexplicable riddle; believe it, and the history of our race is satisfactorily explained.

Jesus Chris was more than man.

Suicide is a crime the most revolting to the feelings; nor does any reason suggest itself to our understanding by which it can be justified. It certainly originates in that species of fear which we denominate poltroonery. For what claim can that man have to courage who trembles at the frowns of fortunes? True heroism consists in being superior to the ills of life in whatever shape they may challenge him to combat.

Men are ruled by toys.

Policemen and prisons ought never to be the means used to bring men back to the practice of religion.

Morality has nothing to do with such a man as I am.

It is exceptional and difficult to find in one man all the qualities necessary for a great general.

I am a monarch of God's creation, and you reptiles of the earth dare not oppose me. I render an account of my government to none save God and Jesus Christ.

A great Nation should have a fixed Government, so that the death of one man should not overturn it.

Where the Government is weak, military sway prevails.

A new-born Government must shine and astonish - the moment it loses its éclat it falls.

Muhammad was a great man, an intrepid soldier; with a handful of men he triumphed at the battle of Bender (sic); a great captain, eloquent, a great man of state, he revived his fatherland and created a new people and a new power in the middle of Arabia.

Christ alone has succeeded in so raising the mind of man towards the unseen that it become insensible to the barriers of time and space.

Our hour is marked, and no one can claim a moment of life beyond what fate has predestined.

A great European federative system alone can be favourable to the development of civilisation.

What I have done up to this is nothing. I am only at the beginning of the course I must run. Do you imagine that I triumph in Italy in order to aggrandise the pack of lawyers who form the Directory, and men like Carnot and Barras? What an idea!

A man's palate can, in time, become accustomed to anything.

A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights. Men are moved by only two mechanisms: fear and self-interest. Victory belongs to the most persevering.

Public instruction should be the first object of government.

When defending itself against another country, a nation never lacks men, but too often, soldiers.

You cannot stop me; I spend thirty thousand men a month.

Where flowers degenerate man cannot live.

The conscience is the sacred haven of the liberty of man.

Men of genius are meteors destined to burn themselves out in lighting up their age.

Man, not men, is the most important consideration.

When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary.

In revolution there are only two sorts of men, those who cause them and those who profit by them.

Remember that a man, a true man, never hates. His rages and his bad moods never last beyond the present moment-like electric shocks.

The public spirit is in the hands of the man who knows how to make use of it.

Public esteem is the recompense of honest men.

When I want any, good head work done; I always choose a man, if possible with a long nose.

Be successful! I judge men only by the results of their actions.

The law, that is what makes men stay honest.

Man is entitled by birthright to a share of the earth's produce sufficient to fill the needs of his existence.

Has a man the right to kill himself? Yes, if his death harms no one and if life is an evil to him. When is life an evil? When it offers a man nothing but suffering and pain.

I have come to realise that men are not born to be free.

God! How men of letters are stupid.

Washington is dead! This great man fought against Tyranny; he established the liberty of his country. His memory will always be dear to the French people, as it will be to all free men of the two worlds; and especially to French soldiers, who, like him and the American soldiers, have combated for liberty and equality.

I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires, and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and whatever other religions the distance of infinity...

The art of government is not to let me grow stale.

The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile.

The true policy of government is to make use of aristocracy, but under the forms and in the spirit of democracy.

Men who have changed the world never achieved their success by winning the chief citizens to their side, but always by stirring the masses.

A man is not dependent upon his fellow creature, when he does not fear death.

To live, is to suffer; and the honest man is always fighting to be master of his own mind.

Men are led by trifles.

Flatterers and men of learning do not accord well with each other.

It is the success which makes great men.

A man who has no consideration for the needs of his men ought never to be given command.

All men of genius, and all those who have gained rank in the republic of letters, are brothers, whatever may be the land of their nativity.

Great men are meteors, consuming themselves to light the world

You don't govern men who don't have religion, you shoot them.

If fifty thousand men were to die for the good of the State, I certainly would weep for them, but political necessity comes before everything else.

A man made for public life and authority never takes account of personalities; he only takes account of things, of their weight and their conseqences.

A man becomes the creature of his uniform.

Men of genius are meteors intended to burn to light their century.

Every man who is worth thirty millions and is not wedded to them, is dangerous to the government.

When a man is a favorite of Fortune she never takes him unawares, and, however astonishing her favors may be, she finds him ready.

Incidents should not govern policy; but, policy incidents.

Men are lead by trifles.

In a narrow sphere great men are blunderers.

Paradise is a center whither the souls of all men are proceeding, each sect in its particular road.

In statesmanship there are predicaments from which it is impossible to escape without some wrongdoing.

What is the government? Nothing, unless supported by opinion.

How many really capable men are children more than once during the day!

In matters of government, justice means force as well as virtue.

Parties weaken themselves by their fear of capable men.

A man cannot become an atheist merely by wishing it.

All the women in the world would not make me lose an hour.

All the great captains have performed vast achievements by conforming with the rules of art--by adjusting efforts to obstacles.

Strangers are just friends waiting to happen. To become a good man, one must have faithful friends, or outright enemies.

The keys of a fortress are always well worth the retirement of the garrison when it is resolved to yield only on those conditions. On this principle it is always wiser to grant an honorable capitulation to a garrison which has made a vigorous resistance than to risk an assault.

The poor man commands respect; the beggar must always excite anger.

In tragedy great men are more truly great than in history. We see them only in the crises which unfold them.

As a rule it is circumstances that make men.

Give me a man with a good allowance of nose, . . . when I want any good head-work done I choose a man--provided his education has been suitable--with a long nose.

The most difficult art is not in the choice of men, but in giving to the men chosen the highest service of which they are capable.

To write history one must be more than a man, since the author who holds the pen of this great justiciary must be free from all preoccupation of interest or vanity.

Liberty is a need felt by a small class of people whom nature has endowed with nobler minds than the mass of men;.... Consequently, it may be repressed with impunity. Equality, on the other hand, pleases the masses.

Wherever flowers cannot be reared, there man cannot live.

Man loves the marvelous. It has an irresistible charm for him. He is always ready to leave that with which he is familiar to pursue vain inventions. He lends himself to his own deception.

There are two merits that glorify a person: being courageous for a man and being virtuous for a woman. Besides these two, there is another merit that glorifies both man and woman: so much loving the homeland to an extent with being ready to sacrifice his/her life, if needed. Turks are such courageous and virtuous people. That is why you can kill a Turk but you can never defeat them.

In the eyes of empire builders men are not men but instruments.

Time is the great art of man.

The greater the man, the less is he opinionative, he depends upon events and circumstances.

A constitution should be framed so as not to impede the action of government, nor force the government to its violation.

The nature of Christ is, I grant it, from one end to another, a web of mysteries; but this mysteriousness does not correspond to the difficulties which all existence contains. Let it be rejected, and the whole world is an enigma; let it be accepted, and we possess a wonderful explanation of the history of man.

Brave deeds are the monuments of brave men.

Do you know what is more hard to bear than the reverses of fortune? It is the baseness, the hideous ingratitude, of man.

It's the unconquerable soul of man, and not the nature of the weapon he uses, that ensures victory

A form of government that is not the result of a long sequence of shared experiences, efforts, and endeavors can never take root.

Men are never attached to you by favours.

France always has plenty men of talent, but it is always deficient in men of action and high character.

A man does not have himself killed for a half-pence a day or for a petty distinction. You must speak to the soul in order to electrify him

A man like me troubles himself little about a million men.

Men have their virtues and their vices, their heroisms and their perversities; men are neither wholly good nor wholly bad, but possess and practice all that there is of good and bad here below. Such is the general rule. Temperament, education, the accidents of life, are modifying factors. Outside of this, everything is ordered arrangement, everything is chance. Such has been my rule of expectation and it has usually brought me success.

War is a serious game in which a man risks his reputation, his troops, and his country. A sensible man will search himself to know whether or not he is fitted for the trade.