Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon I

French Emperor, Military and Political Leader of France

"Destiny urges me to a goal of which I am ignorant. Until that goal is attained I am invulnerable, unassailable. When Destiny has accomplished her purpose in me, a fly may suffice to destroy me."

"Fanaticism must be put to sleep before it can be eradicated."

"He who cannot look over a battlefield with a dry eye, causes the death of many men uselessly."

"Hereditary succession to the magistracy is absurd, as it tends to make a property of it; it is incompatible with the sovereignty of the people."

"In politics nothing is immutable. Events carry within them an invincible power. The unwise destroy themselves in resistance. The skillful accept events, take strong hold of them and direct them."

"Adversity is the midwife of genius."

"A great reserve and severity of manners are necessary for the command of those who are older than ourselves."

"Democracy may become frenzied, but it has feelings and can be moved. As for aristocracy, it is always cold and never forgives."

"An army which cannot be reenforced is already defeated."

"All great events hang by a hair. The man of ability takes advantage of everything and neglects nothing that can give him a chance of success; whilst the less able man sometimes loses everything by neglecting a single one of those chances."

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

"In war one must lean on an obstacle in order to overcome it."

"It is only by prudence, wisdom, and dexterity that great ends are attained and obstacles overcome. Without these qualities nothing succeeds."

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

"Many a one commits a reprehensible action, who is at bottom an honourable man, because man seldom acts upon natural impulse, but from some secret passion of the moment which lies hidden and concealed within the narrowest folds of his heart."

"Lead the ideas of your time and they will accompany and support you; fall behind them and they drag you along with them; oppose them and they will overwhelm you."

"My true glory is not to have won 40 battles,... Waterloo will erase the memory of so many victories.... But ... what will live forever, is my Civil Code."

"Malice delights to blacken the characters of prominent men."

"Laws which are consistent in theory often prove chaotic in practice."

"Men, in general, are but great children."

"Simpletons talk of the past, wise men of the present, and fools of the future."

"Ordinarily men exercise their memory much more than their judgment."

"Success is the most convincing talker in the world."

"Power is founded upon opinion."

"Never depend on the multitude, full of instability and whims; always take precautions against it."

"Orders and decorations are necessary in order to dazzle the people."

"Society cannot exist without inequality of fortunes and the inequality of fortunes could not subsist without religion. Whenever a half-starved person is near another who is glutted, it is impossible to reconcile the difference if there is not an authority who tells him to."

"The man fitted for affairs and authority never considers individuals, but things and their consequences."

"True character stands the test of emergencies. Do not be mistaken, it is weakness from which the awakening is rude."

"To listen to the interests of all marks an ordinary government; to foresee them marks a great government."

"Sometimes a great example is necessary to all the public functionaries of the state."

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

"The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile. The poor wretches say anything that comes into their mind and what they think the interrogator wishes to know."

"Unhappy the general who comes on the field of battle with a system."

"There is a joy in danger."

"We are made weak both by idleness and distrust of ourselves. Unfortunate, indeed, is he who suffers from both. If he is a mere individual he becomes nothing; if he is a king he is lost."

"Unite for the public safety, if you would remain an independent nation."

"Whatever misanthropists may say, ingrates and the perverse are exceptions in the human species."

"When you have an enemy in your power, deprive him of the means of ever injuring you."

"You cannot drag a man's conscience before any tribunal, and no one is answerable for his religious opinions to any power on earth."

"When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary. "