Napoleon I (1769–1821,) also called Napoléon Bonaparte, was the Emperor of France 1804–14 and 1815. One of the greatest military conquerors in history, he remade the map of Europe through his conquests. His significant administrative and legal reforms promoted the growth of liberalism.
Of racially Italian background, Napoleon was born Napoleone Buonaparte in Ajaccio in Corsica. He was educated in the military schools at Brienne (1779) and Paris (1784.) After a meteoric rise through the French Revolutionary Army, Napoleon took power in 1799 as First Consul and assumed the hereditary title of Emperor in 1804.
Napoleon’s many reforms left a lasting mark on the institutions of France and of much of Western Europe. He revolutionized military organization and training, established a French empire that stretched from Spain to Poland, dissolved the Holy Roman Empire, and instituted the long-lived Concordat with the papacy. He also sponsored the Napoleonic Code, the modern French legal, administrative, and educational systems.
Napoleon’s driving passion was the military expansion of French dominion. After his disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812, he was forced into exile in 1814, and, returning to power a year later, was defeated at Waterloo (1815) by the Duke of Wellington’s Anglo-allied army. The British government banished Napoleon to the distant island of St. Helena in the mid-Atlantic, where he died of a stomach illness and was buried in the Valley of the Willows there.
Napoleon’s remains were brought to Paris in 1840 and given a magnificent funeral. Since 1861, his tomb is located in the crypt under the dome at Les Invalides.
Notable biographies of Napoleon include the British historian Andrew Roberts’s Napoleon the Great (2014; USA: Napoleon: A Life) and Frank Kafker and James Laux’s Napoleon and His Times (1989.)
The Foundation Napoléon archives the Emperor’s 33,000 surviving letters.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Napoleon I
The greatest ornament of an illustrious life is modesty and humility, which go a great way in the character even of the most exalted princes.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Modesty
I tell you Wellington is a bad general, the English are bad soldiers; we will settle this matter by lunch time.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Argument
My dominion ends where that of conscience begins.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Conscience
The great art of governing consists in not letting men grow old in their jobs.
—Napoleon I
Circumstances!—I make circumstances!
—Napoleon I
It requires more courage to suffer than to die.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Bravery, Suffering, Courage
When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Mediocrity
Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.
—Napoleon I
The best way to keep one’s word is not to give it.
—Napoleon I
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Glory
You medical people will have more lives to answer for in the other world than even we generals.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Medicine, Doctors
An order that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Leadership, Leaders
The most insupportable of tyrannies is that of inferiors.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Tyranny
When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my eyes.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Conflict, Soldiers
In my youth, I, too, entertained some illusions; but I soon recovered from them. The great orators who rule the assemblies by the brilliancy of their eloquence are in general men of the most mediocre political talents: they should not be opposed in their own way; for they have always more noisy words at command than you. Their eloquence should be opposed by a serious and logical argument; their strength lies in vagueness; they should be brought back to the reality of facts; practical arguments destroy them. In the council, there were men possessed of much more eloquence than I was: I always defeated them by this simple argumenttwo and two make four.
—Napoleon I
The Gospel is not merely a book—it is a living power—a book surpassing all others.—I never omit to read it, and every day with the same pleasure. Nowhere is to be found such a series of beautiful ideas, and admirable moral maxims, which pass before us like the battalions of a celestial army … The soul can never go astray with this book for its guide.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Bible
A true man hates no one.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Men
You think you are too intelligent to believe in God.—I am not like you.—Not every one who wishes to be is an atheist.
—Napoleon I
The art of government is not to let me grow stale.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Government
A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of coloured ribbon.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Pride
Imagination rules the world.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Imagination
From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step.
—Napoleon I
When I want any, good head work done; I always choose a man, if possible with a long nose.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Quality
War is the business of barbarians.
—Napoleon I
Topics: War, Business
Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Family, Mothers, Mother
Vengeance has no foresight.
—Napoleon I
Topics: One liners, Revenge, Vengeance
Respect the burden.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Respect, Respectability
Every soldier carries a marshall’s baton in his pack.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Soldiers
Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Public opinion, Opinion
Men are Moved by two levers only: fear and self interest
—Napoleon I
Topics: Fear, Feelings
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