Quotes by Napoleon Bonaparte

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.

Necessity dominates inclination, will, and right.

Ordinarily men exercise their memory much more than their judgment.

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.

I hope the time is not far off when I shall be able to unite all the wise and educated men of all the countries and establish a uniform regime based on the principles of the Quran which alone are true and which alone can lead men to happiness.

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

I generally had to give in.

Immortality is the best recollection one leaves.

Malice delights to blacken the characters of prominent men.

More glorious to merit a sceptre than to possess one.

When you have an enemy in your power, deprive him of the means of ever injuring you.

He who fears being conquered is certain of defeat.

The people must not be counted upon; they cry indifferently : "Long live the King!" and "Long live the Conspirators!" a proper direction must be given to them, and proper instruments employed to effect it.

Power is founded upon opinion.