“Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.”

“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!”

“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.”

“Es gibt keine andere Unsterblichkeit als die Erinnerung, die man im Geiste der Menschen zurücklässt.”

“Women Knit”

“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.”

“My maxim was, la carrière est ouverte aux talents, without distinction of birth or fortune.”