Napoleon Bonaparte Military Quotations

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

Leave the Artillerymen alone, they are an obstinate lot...

The best generals are those who have served in the artillery.

Soldiers! Forty centuries behold you!

One might as well try to charge through a wall.

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.

In the last analysis, one must be a military man in order to govern. It is only with boot and spurs that one can govern a horse.

To imagine that it is possible to perform great military deeds without fighting is just empty dreams.

Military despotism represses generous sentiments, priestly tyranny stifles them.

Mankind are in the end always governed by superiority of intellectual faculties, and none are more sensible of this than the military profession. When, on my return from Italy, I assumed the dress of the Institute, and associated with men of science, I knew what I was doing: I was sure of not being misunderstood by the lowest drummer boy in the army.

Where the Government is weak, military sway prevails.

I cannot approve of your method of operation, you proceed like a bewildered idiot, taking not the least notice of my orders.

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.

Human life is the only thing that takes care of itself.

Two armies are two bodies which meet and try to frighten each other.

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

The Jesuits are a MILITARY organization, not a religious order. Their chief is a general of an army, not the mere father abbot of a monastery. And the aim of this organization is power - power in its most despotic exercise - absolute power, universal power, power to control the world by the volition of a single man. Jesuitism is the most absolute of despotisms - and at the same time the greatest and most enormous of abuses.

What are the conditions that make for the superiority of an army? Its internal organization, military habits in officers and men, the confidence of each in themselves; that is to say, bravery, patience, and all that is contained in the idea of moral means.

Nothing is more destructive than the charge of artillery on a crowd.

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

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