Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon I (born Napoleone di Buonaparte, later Napoléon Bonaparte) was a French military and political leader who had significant impact on modern European history. He was a general during the French Revolution, the ruler of France as Premier Consul of the French Republic, Empereur des Français, King of Italy, Mediator of the Swiss Confederation and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine.
Born in Corsica and trained in mainland France as an artillery officer, he first rose to prominence as a general of the French Revolution, leading several successful campaigns against the First Coalition and the Second Coalition arrayed against France. In late 1799, Napoleon staged a coup d'état and installed himself as First Consul; five years later he became the Emperor of the French. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, he turned the armies of France against almost every major European power, dominating continental Europe through a lengthy streak of military victories—epitomized through battles such as Austerlitz and Friedland—and through the formation of extensive alliance systems. He appointed close friends and several members of his family as monarchs and important government figures of French-dominated states.
The disastrous French invasion of Russia in 1812 marked a turning point in Napoleon's fortunes. The campaign wrecked the Grande Armée, which never regained its previous strength. In October 1813, the Sixth Coalition defeated his forces at Leipzig and then invaded France. The coalition forced Napoleon to abdicate in April 1814, exiling him to the island of Elba. Less than a year later, he returned to France and regained control of the government in the Hundred Days (les Cent Jours) prior to his final defeat at Waterloo on 18 June 1815. Napoleon spent the remaining six years of his life under British supervision on the island of St. Helena. Napoleon developed relatively few military innovations, although his placement of artillery into batteries and the elevation of the army corps as the standard all-arms unit have become accepted doctrines in virtually all large modern armies. He drew his best tactics from a variety of sources and scored several major victories with a modernized and reformed French army. His campaigns are studied at military academies all over the world and he is widely regarded as one of history's greatest commanders. Aside from his military achievements, Napoleon is also remembered for the establishment of the Napoleonic Code (Code Napoléon), which laid the bureaucratic foundations for the modern French state.
“When you have an enemy in your power, deprive him of the means of ever injuring you.”
“More glorious to merit a sceptre than to possess one.”
“A cowardly act! What do I care about that? You may be sure that I should never fear to commit one if it were to my advantage.”
“Among so many conflicting ideas and so many different perspectives, the honest man is confused and distressed and the skeptic becomes wicked ... Since one must take sides, one might as well choose the side that is victorious, the side which devastates, loots, and burns. Considering the alternative, it is better to eat than to be eaten.”
“My maxim was, la carrière est ouverte aux talents, without distinction of birth or fortune.”
“What is a throne? — a bit of wood gilded and covered in velvet. I am the state— I alone am here the representative of the people. Even if I had done wrong you should not have reproached me in public—people wash their dirty linen at home. France has more need of me than I of France.”
“If the art of war were nothing but the art of avoiding risks, glory would become the prey of mediocre minds.... I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest.”
“A form of government that is not the result of a long sequence of shared experiences, efforts, and endeavors can never take root.”
“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.”
“Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.”
“A true man hates no one.”
“Women Knit”
“Variety made the Revolution. Liberty was just a pretext.”
“In our time no one has the conception of what is great. It is up to me to show them.”
“Lo imposible es el fantasma de los tímidos y el refugio de los cobardes.”
“You wish to sail a ship up stream by lighting a fire under its decks, I have no time for such nonsense.”
“The surest way to remain poor is to be honest.”
“Women are nothing but machines for producing children.”
“We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.”
“If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.”
“You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bonfire under her decks? I have no time for such nonsense.”
“The greatest danger occurs at the moment of victory”
“If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.”
“England is a nation of shopkeepers.”
“Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.”
“I start out by believing the worst”
“Throw off your worries when you throw off your clothes at night.”
“War is the business of barbarians.”
“Circumstances-what are circumstances? I make circumstances”
“A throne is only a bench covered with velvet.”
“It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.”
“He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.”
“A picture is worth a thousand words.”
“Of all the peoples of Europe, Spaniards disgust me the least.”
“Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.”
“There shall be no Alps.”
“Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.”
“The love of glory is like the bridge that Satan built across Chaos to pass from Hell to Paradise: glory links the past with the future across a bottomless abyss. Nothing to my son, except my name!”
“Victory belongs to the most persevering.”
“Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.”
“Great men are meteors designed to burn so that earth may be lighted.”
“An army marches on its stomach.”
“A woman laughing is a woman conquered.”
“Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets..”
“A revolution is an idea, taken up by bayonets.”
“Courage isn't having the strength to go on - it is going on when you don't have strength.”
“Never tell your enemy he is doing the wrong thing.”
“Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.”
“It's the unconquerable soul of man, and not the nature of the weapon he uses, that ensures victory”
“There are but two powers in the world, the sword and the mind. In the long run the sword is always beaten by the mind”