Napoleon1805

“Balzac has incomparably described how the example of Napoleon electrified an entire generation in France. To Balzac the brilliant rise of the insignificant Lieutenant Bonaparte to the rank of emperor of the world meant not only the triumph of an individual, but the victory of the idea of youth. That one did not have to be born a prince or a duke to achieve power at an early age, that one might come from any humble and even poor family and yet be a general at twenty-four, ruler of France at thirty and of the entire world, caused hundreds, after this unique success, to abandon petty vocations and provincial abodes. Lieutenant Bonaparte had fired the minds of an entire generation of youth. He drove them to aspire to higher things, he made the generals of the Grande Armée the heroes and careerists of the comédie humaine. It is always an individual young person who achieves the unattainable for the first time in any field, and thus encourages all the youngsters around him or who come after him, by the mere fact of his success.”
― Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday

“My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements, and operate the device entirely in my mind.”
― Nikola Tesla, My Inventions: An Autobiography

“I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay hands on everything they can get.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“The relative frequency of all sympathetic streams is in the ratio 3:6:9. Those whose relative frequencies are 3:9 are mutually attractive, while those having the relation of 6:9 are mutually repellent.”
― John Worrell Keely