Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes

“Napoleon, when hearing about Laplace's latest book, said, 'M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its creator.'

Laplace responds, 'Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là. (I had no need of that hypothesis.)”
― Pierre-Simon Laplace

“This society [Jesuits] has been a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution, or Napoleon's despotism or ideology. It has obstructed the progress of reformation and the improvement of the human mind in society much longer and more fatally.

{Letter to Thomas Jefferson, November 4, 1816. Adams wrote an anonymous 4 volume work on the destructive history of the Jesuits}”
― John Adams, The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson & Abigail & John Adams

“You tell me that class distinctions are baubles used by monarchs, I defy you to show me a republic, ancient or modern, in which distinctions have not existed. You call these medals and ribbons baubles; well, it is with such baubles that men are led. I would not say this in public, but in a assembly of wise statesmen it should be said. I don't think that the French love liberty and equality: the French are not changed by ten years of revolution: they are what the Gauls were, fierce and fickle. They have one feeling: honour. We must nourish that feeling. The people clamour for distinction. See how the crowd is awed by the medals and orders worn by foreign diplomats. We must recreate these distinctions. There has been too much tearing down; we must rebuild. A government exists, yes and power, but the nation itself - what is it? Scattered grains of sand.”
― Napoléon Bonaparte

“Let us be just, my friends! What a splendid destiny for a nation to be the Empire of such an Emperor, when that nation is France and when it adds its own genius to the genius of that man! To appear and to reign, to march and to triumph, to have for halting-places all capitals, to take his grenadiers and to make kings of them, to decree the falls of dynasties, and to transfigure Europe at the pace of a charge; to make you feel that when you threaten you lay your hand on the hilt of the sword of God; to follow in a single man, Hannibal, Caesar, Charlemagne; to be the people of some one who mingles with your dawns the startling announcement of a battle won, to have the cannon of the Invalides to rouse you in the morning, to hurl into abysses of light prodigious words which flame forever, Marengo, Arcola, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram! To cause constellations of victories to flash forth at each instant from the zenith of the centuries, to make the French Empire a pendant to the Roman Empire, to be the great nation and to give birth to the grand army, to make its legions fly forth over all the earth, as a mountain sends out its eagles on all sides to conquer, to dominate, to strike with lightning, to be in Europe a sort of nation gilded through glory, to sound athwart the centuries a trumpet-blast of Titans, to conquer the world twice, by conquest and by dazzling, that is sublime; and what greater thing is there?"

"To be free," said Combeferre.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“in this life we are either kings or pawns emperors and fools”
― Napoléon Bonaparte

“In war, the moral is to the physical as ten to one.”
― Napoléon Bonaparte

“When we set about accounting for a Napoleon or a Shakespeare or a Raphael or a Wagner or an Edison or other extraordinary person, we understand that the measure of his talent will not explain the whole result, nor even the largest part of it; no, it is the atmosphere in which the talent was cradled that explains; it is the training it received while it grew, the nurture it got from reading, study, example, the encouragement it gathered from self-recognition and recognition from the outside at each stage of its development: when we know all these details, then we know why the man was ready when his opportunity came.”
― Mark Twain, How Nancy Jackson Married Kate Wilson and Other Tales of Rebellious Girls and Daring Young Women

“The reading of history very soon made me feel that I was capable of achieving as much as the men who are placed in the highest ranks of our annals.”
― Napoléon Bonaparte

“Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever”
― Napoléon Bonaparte

“It is known that the stars and cosmos abandoned Napolean when he abandoned Josefina. There is a universal cosmic law that there can only be one Spiritual Wife for each Master or cosmic hero. If he abandons his Spiritual Wife the stars and cosmos will abandon him.”
― Miguel Serrano, El Cordón Dorado: Hitlerismo Esotérico

“In 1819 the proudest man in all of England was, without a doubt, the Duke of Wellington. This was not particularly surprising; when a man has twice defeated the armies of the wicked French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, it is only natural that he should have a rather high opinion of himself.”
― Susanna Clarke, The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories

“He [Napoleon] had the defect of all parvenus -- that of having too great an opinion of the class into which he had risen.”
― Stendhal

“He is not a great man. None of us are great men. We are just caught in the wave of history.”
― Dave Malloy

“I love power like a musician loves music.”
― Napoléon Bonaparte

“If Napoleon can seek to ascend all the thrones of Europe, I suppose we may go dragging them out from under him”
― Naomi Novik

“Ma vraie gloire n’est pas d’avoir gagné quarante batailles. Waterloo effacera le souvenir de tant de victoires. Ce que rien n’effacera, ce qui vivra éternellement, c’est mon Code civil.”
― Napoléon Bonaparte

“I want to go with you," I told him.
"To Egypt?" he whispered.
"Wherever you go.”
― Sandra Gulland, Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe

“A large stone was then lowered down on the grave, and covered the moderate space now sufficient for the man for whom Europe was once too little.”
― Walter Scott, The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte: A Biography

“50 Cent is a master player at power, a kind of hip-hop Napoleon Bonaparte.”
― Robert Greene, The 50th Law: Overcoming Adversity Through Fearlessness

“Post-1815 Britain, like post-1945 America, exhibited both a taste for hegemony and an inclination to fight large numbers of small, intense wars in other weaker countries. In both cases, one must wonder how far this tendency was fostered by a belief that war could be engaged in—but somehow and at some level at a distance.

Facing Napoleon’s Own EU. Review of: “In these times: living in Britain through Napoleon’s wars, 1793-1815.” New York Review of Books, vol. 62, no. 7 (Nov. 5, 2015). P. 53. Review by Linda Colley”
― Jennifer S. Uglow

“I want to go with you," I told him.
"To Egypt?" I whispered.
"Wherever you go.”
― Sandra Gulland

“Nous étions nombreux à développer une allergie aux illusions virutuelles. Les sommations de l'époquenous fatiguaient : "Enjoy! Take care ! Be safe !Be connected !" Nous étions dégoûtés du clignotement des villes. Si nous écrasions à coups de talon les écrans livides de nos vies high-tech s'ouvrirairnt un chemin noir, une lueurde tunnel à travers le dispositif. [...] vivre me semblait le synonyme de "s'échapper". Napoléon avait dit au général de Caulain-court dans le traîneau qui les ramenait à Paris après le passage de la Berezina : "Il y a deux sortes d'hommes, ceux qui commandent et ceux qui obéissent." [...] l'Empereur avait oublié une troisième colonne : les hommes qui fuient. "Sire!" lui aurais-je dit si je l'avais connu' "Fuir, c'est commander ! C'est au moins commander au destin de n'avoir aucune prise sur vous.”
― Sylvain Tesson, Sur les chemins noirs

“And, Your Majesty, he was afraid to tell you, but … secretly, he was a Pisces.”
― Sharon Cameron, A Spark Unseen

“Everyday since I have met you I have loved you a thousand times more.
(Napolean Bonaparte)”
― Gill Paul, Royal Love Stories: The tales behind the real-life romances of Europe's kings and queens

“Not seeing that many visitors to the island, my cab driver Harry was only too happy to tell me the story of Napoleon on Saint Helena as he saw it. The way he told me the story I could have believed that it took place just days ago instead of over two hundred years prior. Napoleon had arrived on the island as a prisoner, on October 17, 1815 and lived there until his death resulting from stomach cancer on May 5, 1821. During this time he enjoyed the company of a young teenage girl named ,. Many years later, Napoleon III the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, rewarded Betsy with 500 hectares of land with vineyards in Algeria for the attention and comfort she provided his uncle.”
― Captain Hank Bracker, "Seawater Three"

“Наполеон привык глядеть войне прямо в глаза. Он никогда не занимался сложением, цифра за цифрой, прискорбных подробностей; цифры слагаемых были ему безразличны, лишь бы они составили нужную ему сумму – победу. Пусть неудачным оказалось начало, это его нисколько не тревожило, ибо он мнил себя господином и владыкой исхода битвы; он умел, не теряя веры в свои силы, выжидать и стоял перед судьбой, как равный перед равным. «Ты не посмеешь!» – казалось, говорил он року.”
― Victor Hugo

“March, 1815, Michel Ney, ". . . I'll bring Napoléon back to Paris in an iron cage" if necessary.
Napoléon declared, “I shall receive you as I did after the Battle of the Moskowa.”
Ney then recanted, ". . . the cause of the Bourbons is lost forever! The legitimate dynasty . . . [i]s the Emperor Napoléon, our sovereign, who alone has the right to rule over our beautiful country!”
The troops exploded, “Vive l’Empereur!”
― Several

“Forgive my silence, my dear cardinal I should have spoken first, to welcome you, but I must confess that I was dumb with admiration. Madame, your godfather endeavoured to describe your beauty to me but, for the first time in his life, his eloquence has proved unequal to the task; so far unequal that only the fact that none but a poet could find words to express such divinity can excuse him. Let me say how deeply - humbly grateful I am to you for being here - and for being yourself !

~Prince Corrado Sant'Anna”
― Juliette Benzoni, Marianne and the Masked Prince

“Als ik de teloorgang van het geweten zie, de heerschappij van het geld, de verspreiding van de corruptie, dan denk ik over de grootse dingen uit het verleden en kom ik soms in de verleiding om tegen heel Frankrijk te zeggen: Laten we over de keizers spreken, dat zal ons goed doen.”
― Victor Hugo

“Corsican Checkmate by Stewart Stafford

With one loyal warhorse,
I could snatch victory!
You force an ultimatum,
An eagle downed for wrens.

Are you battle steeds,
Or brood mares of a new stallion?
Or do you take my knight,
In impotent checkmate?

I, Napoleon, ruled Europe,
From Brest to Brest-Litovsk,
A chicken feather’s stroke,
And my empire falls.

You offer exile to Elba,
Reaping rich estates
Which I secured for you,
Silence is my thanks.

Give me your vile scrap,
No death warrant, but close,
I’ll scratch my mighty name,
Here’s my blood — begone!
This about the abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte.

© 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford