Napoleon Bonaparte War Quotations

The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.

Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.

There are only two forces that unite men - fear and interest.

Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.

A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.

History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.

Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them.

He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.

If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.

A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.

You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy's ranks.

Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.

In war, as in prostitution, amateurs are often better than professionals.

Remember, gentlemen, what a Roman emperor said: The corpse of an enemy always smells sweet.

If I were an Englishman, I should esteem the man who advised a war with China to be the greatest living enemy of my country. You would be beaten in the end, and perhaps a revolution in India would follow.

My enemies make appointments at my tomb.

In war there is but one favorable moment; the great art is to seize it!

I engage and after that I see what to do.

The secret of war lies in the communications.

In war, as in politics, no evil - even if it is permissible under the rules - is excusable unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything beyond that is a crime.

Imagination rules the world.

War is ninety percent information.

A true man hates no one.

In war you see your own troubles; those of the enemy you cannot see. You must show confidence.

England would be better off without Canada; it keeps her in a prepared state for war at a great expense and constant irritation.

Ability is nothing without opportunity.

It would be a joke if the conduct of the victor had to be justified to the vanquished.

That man made me miss my destiny.

In war, men are nothing, one man is everything.

In war, as in love, we must come into contact before we triumph.

Give me enough medals and I’ll win you any war

The transition from the defensive to the offensive is one of the most delicate operations in war.

To extraordinary circumstance we must apply extraordinary remedies.

How many things apparently impossible have nevertheless been performed by resolute men who had no alternative but death.

There is no man more pusillanimous than I when I am planning a campaign. I purposely exaggerate all the dangers and all the calamities that the circumstances make possible. I am in a thoroughly painful state of agitation. This does not keep me from looking quite serene in front of my entourage; I am like an unmarried girl laboring with child. Once I have made up my mind, everything is forgotten except what leads to success.

Peoples of Egypt , you will be told that I have come to destroy your religion. Do not believe it! Reply that I have come to restore your rights!

God is on the side with the best artillery

War is a serious game in which a man risks his reputation, his troops, and his country. A sensible man will search himself to know whether or not he is fitted for the trade.

I treat policies like war. I hoodwink one flank so as to trounce the other. In my family we kneel only to God.

A man like me troubles himself little about a million men.

War is the business of barbarians.

To have good soldiers, a nation must always be at war.

In the eyes of empire builders men are not men but instruments.

Never lose sight of this maxim, that you should establish your cantonments at the most distant and best protected point from the enemy, especially where a surprise is possible. By this means you will have time to unite all your forces before he can attack you.

An army marches on its stomach.

It is cowardly to commit suicide. The English often kill themselves. It is a malady caused by the humid climate.

A general-in-chief should ask himself several times in the day, What if the enemy were to appear now in my front, or on my right, or my left?

He that makes war without many mistakes has not made war very long.

Strategy is the art of making use of time and space. I am less concerned about the later than the former. Space we can recover, lost time never.

The first quality of a soldier is constancy in enduring fatigue and hardship. Courage is only the second. Poverty privation and want are the school of the good soldier.

It is an approved maxim in war, never to do what the enemy wishes you to do, for this reason alone, that he desires it.

It is the business of cavalry to follow up the victory, and to prevent the beaten army from rallying.

The keys of a fortress are always well worth the retirement of the garrison when it is resolved to yield only on those conditions. On this principle it is always wiser to grant an honorable capitulation to a garrison which has made a vigorous resistance than to risk an assault.

The spectacle of a field of battle after the combat, is sufficient to inspire Princes with the love of peace, and the horror of war.

You do not get peace by shouting: Peace. Peace is a meaningless word; what we need is a glorious peace.

In war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one.

When Monarchs abuse the rights with which they have been invested by the confidence of the people, and bring down upon their heads the calamity of war, the people have the right to withdraw their allegiance.

War is not at all such a difficult art as people think. . . . In reality it would seem that he is vanquished who is afraid of his adversary and the the whole secret lies in that.

An army must have but one line of operations. This must be maintained with care and abandoned only for major reasons.

The mind of a general ought to resemble and be as clear as the field-glass of a telescope.

Soldiers! Here is the battle you have so long desired! Henceforth victory depends on you; we have need of it.

Insubordination may only be the evidence of a strong mind.

In revolution there are only two sorts of men, those who cause them and those who profit by them.

Man, not men, is the most important consideration.

Between a battle lost and a battle won, the distance is immense and there stand empires.

Artillery is more essential to cavalry than to infantry, because cavalry has no fire for its defence, but depends on the sabre.

I have fought sixty battles, and I have learnt nothing which I did not know at the beginning.

The admiral needs only one science, that of navigation. The general needs all the sciences.

Nothing is so important in war as an undivided command.

The art of land warfare is an art of genius, of inspiration. On the sea nothing is genius or inspiration; everything is positive or empiric.

In war, three-quarters turns on personal character and relations; the balance of manpower and materials counts only for the remaining quarter.

What my enemies call a general peace is my destruction. What I call peace is merely the disarmament of my enemies. Am I not more moderate than they?

War is cruel to the people, and terrible to the conquered.

Victory and disaster establish indestructible bonds between armies and their commanders.

A victorious general must know how to employ severity, justness, and mildness by turns, if he would allay sedition or prevent it.

You cannot stop me; I spend thirty thousand men a month.

When defending itself against another country, a nation never lacks men, but too often, soldiers.

There are certain things in war of which the commander alone comprehends the importance. Nothing but his superior firmness and ability can subdue and surmount all difficulties.

War justifies everything.

In war the simplest manoeuvres are the best.

At the head of an army, nothing is more becoming than simplicity.

It is not set speeches at the moment of battle that render soldiers brave.

Better to have a known enemy than a forced ally.

It is with artillery that war is made.

A starving army is actually worse than none.

All generals, officers, and soldiers who capitulate in battle to save their own lives should be decimated.

Good infantry is without doubt the sinews of an army; but if it has to fight a long time against very superior artillery, it will become demoralized and will be destroyed.

It is exceptional and difficult to find in one man all the qualities necessary for a great general.

In war, character and opinion make more than half of the reality.

There is only one favorable moment in war; talent consists in knowing how to seize it.

War,--the trade of barbarians!

Providence is always on the side of the last reserve.

The fate of war is to be exalted in the morning, and low enough at night! There is but one step from triumph to ruin.

Tis a principle of war that when you can use the lightning, 'tis better than cannon.

Terrorism, War & Bankruptcy are caused by the privatization of money, issued as a debt and compounded by interest.

War is a lottery in which nations ought to risk nothing but small amounts.

In war it is not men, but the man who counts.