Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Napoleon I (Emperor of France)

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

Circumstances—what are circumstances? I make circumstances.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Positive Attitudes, Self-reliance, Attitude, Optimism, Mindsets

A true man hates no one.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Men

There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Spirituality, Mind, Spirit

Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Procrastination, Thinking, Action

The nature of Christ’s existence is mysterious, I admit; but this mystery meets the wants of man.—Reject it and the world is an inexplicable riddle; believe it, and the history of our race is satisfactorily explained.
—Napoleon I

An army marches on it’s stomach.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Army

To do all that one is able to do is to be a man; to do all that one would like to do is to be a god.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Awareness, Realization, Acceptance, Expectations, Realistic Expectations

My downfall raises me to infinite heights.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Failure

Let the path be open to talent.
—Napoleon I

True wisdom for a general is vigorous determination.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Determination

The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.
—Napoleon I
Topics: The Body, Medicine, One liners, Body

If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Control

Men, in general, are but great children.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Man

Ten persons who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Power

War is the business of barbarians.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Business, War

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.
—Napoleon I

Over-preparation is the foe of inspiration.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Preparation, Inspiration

Put a rogue in the lime-light and he will act like an honest man.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Honesty

I may be accused or rashness, but not sluggishness.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Haste

A resolute determination is the truest wisdom.
—Napoleon I
Topics: One liners, Determination

You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy’s ranks.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Dying, Death

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 principals which direct them.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Ambition

Greatness be nothing unless it be lasting.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Greatness, Greatness & Great Things

Tragedy warms the soul, elevates the heart, and can and ought to create heroes. In this sense, perhaps, France owes a part of her great actions to Corneille.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Tragedy

No matter where you go, however far away, a part of me will be with you and a part of you, with me, will stay
But to see her was to love her, love but her, and love her forever
As for me, to love you alone, to make you happy, to do nothing which would contradict your wishes, this is my destiny and the meaning of my life.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Love, Romance

There is no place in a fanatic’s head where reason can enter.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Fanaticism

With audacity one can undertake anything, but not do everything.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Courage, Risk

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

Use dispatch.—Remember that the world only took six days for its creation,—Ask me for whatever you please except time; that is the only thing which is beyond my power.
—Napoleon I

In politics… never retreat, never retract… never admit a mistake.
—Napoleon I
Topics: Politics, Politicians, Mistakes, Society

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