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Napoléon Bonaparte was a French statesman and military leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars. He was Emperor of the French as Napoleon I from 1804 until 1814 and again briefly in 1815 during the Hundred Days. Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars. He won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, building a large empire that ruled over much of continental Europe before its final collapse in 1815. He is considered one of the greatest commanders in history, and his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. Napoleon's political and cultural legacy has endured as one of the most celebrated and controversial leaders in human history.He was born Napoleone Buonaparte in Corsica to a relatively modest Italian family from minor nobility. He was serving as an artillery officer in the French army when the French Revolution erupted in 1789. He rapidly rose through the ranks of the military, seizing the new opportunities presented by the Revolution and becoming a general at age 24. The French Directory eventually gave him command of the Army of Italy after he suppressed the 13 Vendémiaire revolt against the government from royalist insurgents. At age 26, he began his first military campaign against the Austrians and the Italian monarchs aligned with the Habsburgs—winning virtually every battle, conquering the Italian Peninsula in a year while establishing "sister republics" with local support, and becoming a war hero in France. In 1798, he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a springboard to political power. He orchestrated a coup in November 1799 and became First Consul of the Republic. After the Peace of Amiens in 1802, Napoleon turned his attention to France's colonies. He sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States, and he attempted to restore slavery to the French Caribbean colonies. However, while he was successful in restoring slavery in the eastern Caribbean, Napoleon failed in his attempts to subdue Saint-Domingue, and the colony that France once proudly boasted of as the "Pearl of the Antilles" became independent as Haiti in 1804. Napoleon's ambition and public approval inspired him to go further, and he became the first Emperor of the French in 1804. Intractable differences with the British meant that the French were facing a Third Coalition by 1805. Napoleon shattered this coalition with decisive victories in the Ulm Campaign and a historic triumph over the Russian Empire and Austrian Empire at the Battle of Austerlitz which led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1806, the Fourth Coalition took up arms against him because Prussia became worried about growing French influence on the continent. Napoleon quickly defeated Prussia at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt, then marched his Grande Armée deep into Eastern Europe and annihilated the Russians in June 1807 at the Battle of Friedland. France then forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July 1807, bringing an uneasy peace to the continent. Tilsit signified the high-water mark of the French Empire. In 1809, the Austrians and the British challenged the French again during the War of the Fifth Coalition, but Napoleon solidified his grip over Europe after triumphing at the Battle of Wagram in July.

Napoleon then occupied the Iberian Peninsula, hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, and declared his brother Joseph Bonaparte the King of Spain in 1808. The Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support. The Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, and ended in victory for the Allies against Napoleon. The Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states, especially Russia. The Russians were unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade and routinely violated the Continental System, enticing Napoleon into another war. The French launched a major invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The campaign destroyed Russian cities, but did not yield the decisive victory Napoleon wanted. It resulted in the collapse of the Grande Armée and inspired a renewed push against Napoleon by his enemies. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in the War of the Sixth Coalition against France. A lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, but his tactical victory at the minor Battle of Hanau allowed retreat onto French soil. The Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba off the coast of Tuscany, and the Bourbon dynasty was restored to power. Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition which defeated him at the Battle of Waterloo in June. The British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died six years later at the age of 51.

Napoleon's influence on the modern world brought liberal reforms to the numerous territories that he conquered and controlled, such as the Low Countries, Switzerland, and large parts of modern Italy and Germany. He implemented fundamental liberal policies in France and throughout Western Europe. His Napoleonic Code has influenced the legal systems of more than 70 nations around the world. British historian Andrew Roberts states: "The ideas that underpin our modern world—meritocracy, equality before the law, property rights, religious toleration, modern secular education, sound finances, and so on—were championed, consolidated, codified and geographically extended by Napoleon. To them he added a rational and efficient local administration, an end to rural banditry, the encouragement of science and the arts, the abolition of feudalism and the greatest codification of laws since the fall of the Roman Empire". Wikipedia  

✵ 15. August 1769 – 5. May 1821   •   Other names Bonaparte Napoleon I.
Napoleon I of France photo
Napoleon I of France: 259   quotes 280   likes

Napoleon I of France Quotes

“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.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Suffering

“A constitution should be framed so as not to impede the action of government, nor force the government to its violation.”

Napoleon I of France

Source: Political Aphorisms, Moral and Philosophical Thoughts (1848), p. 246

“Impatience is a great obstacle to success; he who treats everything with brusqueness gathers nothing, or only immature fruit which will never ripen.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Success

“Ability is nothing without opportunity.”

Napoleon I of France

As quoted in Have You Ever Noticed? : The Wit and Irony of Every Day Life (1985) by Joe Moore
Attributed

“The moment of greatest peril is the moment of victory.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Victory

“I ought to have died at Waterloo”

Napoleon I of France

J'aurais dû mourir à Waterloo
Mémorial de Sainte Hélène

“The secret of great battles consists in knowing how to deploy and concentrate at the right time.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Secret , Time

“Immortality is the best recollection one leaves.”

Napoleon I of France

Memoirs of Napoleon (1829-1831)

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

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

“All men of genius, and all those who have gained rank in the republic of letters, are brothers, whatever may be the land of their nativity.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Men

“I hope the time is not far off when I shall be able to unite all the wise and educated men of all the countries and establish a uniform regime based on the principles of the Quran which alone are true and which alone can lead men to happiness.”

Napoleon I of France

Letter to Sheikh El-Messiri, (28 August 1798); published in Correspondance Napoleon edited by Henri Plon (1861), Vol.4, No. 3148, p. 420

Men , Education , Hope , Time

“Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

Napoleon I of France

Often known as Hanlon's razor, this was attributed to Napoleon without source in Message Passing Server Internals (2003) by Bill Blunden, p. 15, ISBN 0071416382
Misattributed

Stupidity

“Surely in a matter of this kind we should endeavor to do something, that we may say that we have not lived in vain, that we may leave some impress of ourselves on the sands of time.”

Napoleon I of France

From an alleged Letter of to his Minister of the Interior on the Poor Laws. Pub. in The Press, Feb. 1, 1868.
Attributed

Time

“An army which cannot be reenforced is already defeated.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

“The future destiny of the child is always the work of his mother. Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons.”

Napoleon I of France

As quoted in Mama Was My Teacher: Growing Up In A Small Southern Town (2004) by Dozier Cade, p. 77
Attributed

Future

“From the heights of these pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.”

Napoleon I of France

Speech to his troops in Egypt (21 July 1798) Variant translation: "Soldiers, from the summit of yonder pyramids forty centuries look down upon you...". Published in the autobiography of French general Eugène de Beauharnais.

“Each state claims the right to control interests foreign to itself when those interests are such that it can control them without putting its own interests in danger. … other powers only recognize this right of intervening in proportion as the country doing it has the power to do it.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Country

“One can lead a nation only by helping it see a bright outlook. A leader is a dealer in hope.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Hope , Help

“The Corsican ogre has just landed at the Juan Gulf.”

Napoleon I of France

Le Moniteur Universel, March 10, 1815.
About

“Fanaticism must be put to sleep before it can be eradicated.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Sleep

“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.”

Napoleon I of France

On the subject of torture, in a letter to Louis Alexandre Berthier (11 November 1798), published in Correspendance Napoleon edited by Henri Plon (1861), Vol. V, No. 3605, p. 128

Men , Secret , Way , Thinking

“How many seemingly impossible things have been accomplished by resolute men because they had to do, or die.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Men

“Give them a whiff of grapeshot.”

Napoleon I of France

This is often quoted as a command Napoleon issued when dispersing mobs marching on the National Assembly in Paris (5 October 1795), or it is occasionally stated that he boasted "I gave them a whiff of grapeshot" sometime afterwards, but the first known use of the term "whiff of grapeshot" is actually by Thomas Carlyle in his work The French Revolution (1837), describing the use of cannon salvo [salve de canons] against crowds, and not even the use of them by Napoleon.
Misattributed

“Man achieves in life only by commanding the capabilities nature has given him, or by creating them within himself by education and by knowing how to profit by the difficulties encountered.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Life , Education , Nature

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

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

“A little while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon, a magnificent tomb, and I gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at last the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world. I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide. I saw him at Toulon—I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris—I saw him at the head of the army of Italy—I saw him crossing the bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand—I saw him in Egypt in the shadows of the pyramids—I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo—at Ulm and Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster—driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris—clutched like a wild beast—banished to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where Chance and Fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea. I thought of the orphans and widows he had made—of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun. I would rather have been that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky—with my children upon my knees and their arms about me—I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder, known as 'Napoleon the Great.”

Napoleon I of France

Robert G. Ingersoll, The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child
About

Love , Fate , Children , World

“Able was I ere I saw Elba.”

Napoleon I of France

The earliest publication yet located of this famous palindrome is in the "Witty and Whimsical" section of The Saturday Reader, Vol. II, No. 30 (31 March 1866), p. 64:
It is said that Napoleon, when asked by Dr. O'Meara if he really thought he could have invaded England at the time he threatened to do so, replied in the following ingenious anagram [sic]: — "Able was I ere I saw Elba." The reader will Observe that it reads the same backward or forward.
Of such attributions to Napoleon, there is little credence, as stated by William Irvine in Madam I'm Adam and Other Palindromes (1987): "The well-known ABLE WAS I, ERE I SAW ELBA, for example, is conveniently attributed to Napoleon, whose knowledge of English wordplay was certainly questionable, at best." There is no mention of such a palindrome in O'Meara's own work, Napoleon in Exile : or, A Voice from St. Helena (1822).
Misattributed

“The great difficulty with politics is, that there are no established principles.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

“The great mass of society are far from being depraved; for if a large majority were criminal or inclined to break the laws, where would the force or power be to prevent or constrain them? And herein is the real blessing of civilization, because this happy result has its origin in her bosom, growing out of her very nature.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Law , Nature , Happiness

“The most difficult art is not in the choice of men, but in giving to the men chosen the highest service of which they are capable.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Men , Art

“A prince should suspect everything.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

“Our credulity is a part of the imperfection of our natures. It is inherent in us to desire to generalize, when we ought, on the contrary, to guard ourselves very carefully from this tendency.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Nature , Parting

“It is only with prudence, sagacity, and much dexterity that great aims are accomplished, and all obstacles surmounted. Otherwise nothing is accomplished.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)
Variant: It is only by prudence, wisdom, and dexterity, that great ends are attained and obstacles overcome. Without these qualities nothing succeeds.

“A great people may be killed, but they cannot be intimidated.”

Napoleon I of France

Political Aphorisms, Moral and Philosophical Thoughts (1848)

People

“A good sketch is better than a long speech.”

Napoleon I of France

Un bon croquis vaut mieux qu'un long discours.
Quoted in L'Arche de Noé (1968) by Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, p. 48; this has sometimes also been translated as "A picture is worth a thousand words", though it is not known to be the origin of that English expression.
Attributed

“Posterity alone rightly judges kings. Posterity alone has the right to accord or withhold honors.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

“Power is founded upon opinion.”

Napoleon I of France

Source: Political Aphorisms, Moral and Philosophical Thoughts (1848), p. 248

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

Napoleon I of France

Political Aphorisms, Moral and Philosophical Thoughts (1848)

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

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

War

“An army of sheep, led by a lion, is better than an army of lions, led by a sheep.”

Napoleon I of France

Attributed to Napoleon in Napoleon (1941) by Yevgeny Tarle, this is a variant of an ancient proverb often attributed to many military and political figures, including Alexander the Great, and the even earlier figure Chabrias (Χαβρίας).
Misattributed

“What is the government? nothing, unless supported by opinion.”

Napoleon I of France

Source: Political Aphorisms, Moral and Philosophical Thoughts (1848), p. 242

Support

“As a rule it is circumstances that make men.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Men

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

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Dependency

“An army ought to be ready every moment to offer all the resistance of which it is capable.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

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

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Feeling , Democracy , Forgiveness

“More glorious to merit a sceptre than to possess one.”

Napoleon I of France

Memoirs of Napoleon (1829-1831)

“In politics, an absurdity is not an impediment.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

“Nothing is so contrary to military rules as to make the strength of your army known, either in the orders of the day, in proclamations, or in the newspapers.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

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

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

“The superior man is never in anyone's way.”

Napoleon I of France

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Way