Napoleon Bonaparte Army Quotations

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

Women are nothing but machines for producing children.

The army is the true nobility of our country.

If you build an army of 100 lions and their leader is a dog, in any fight, the lions will die like a dog. But if you build an army of 100 dogs and their leader is a lion, all dogs will fight as a lion

Every private in the French army carries a Field Marshall wand in his knapsack.

A form of government that is not the result of a long sequence of shared experiences, efforts, and endeavors can never take root.

Among so many conflicting ideas and so many different perspectives, the honest man is confused and distressed and the skeptic becomes wicked ... Since one must take sides, one might as well choose the side that is victorious, the side which devastates, loots, and burns. Considering the alternative, it is better to eat than to be eaten.

An army which cannot be regularly recruited is a doomed army.

The basic principle that we must follow in directing the armies of the Republic is this: that they must feed themselves on war at the expense of the enemy territory.

It's not the size of the army but the power within the army.

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

An army's effectiveness depends on its size, training, experience, and morale, and morale is worth more than any of the other factors combined.

One might as well try to charge through a wall.

Cavalry is useful before, during, and after the battle.

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.

An army which cannot be reenforced is already defeated.

For today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology. Where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of Thought is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people. With one will. One resolve. One cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death. And we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!

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.

An army travels on its stomach. Soup makes the soldier.

I am a monarch of God's creation, and you reptiles of the earth dare not oppose me. I render an account of my government to none save God and Jesus Christ.

Send me 300 francs; that sum will enable me to go to Paris. There, at least, one can cut a figure and surmount obstacles. Everything tells me I shall succeed. Will you prevent me from doing so for the want of 100 crowns?

France is invaded; I am leaving to take command of my troops, and, with God's help and their valor, I hope soon to drive the enemy beyond the frontier.

Good infantry is without doubt the sinews of an army; but if it has to fight a long time against very superior artillery, it will become demoralized and will be destroyed.

A starving army is actually worse than none.

Muhammad was a great man, an intrepid soldier; with a handful of men he triumphed at the battle of Bender (sic); a great captain, eloquent, a great man of state, he revived his fatherland and created a new people and a new power in the middle of Arabia.

Our hour is marked, and no one can claim a moment of life beyond what fate has predestined.

At the head of an army, nothing is more becoming than simplicity.

A cowardly act! What do I care about that? You may be sure that I should never fear to commit one if it were to my advantage.

What I have done up to this is nothing. I am only at the beginning of the course I must run. Do you imagine that I triumph in Italy in order to aggrandise the pack of lawyers who form the Directory, and men like Carnot and Barras? What an idea!

Wherever wood can swim, there I am sure to find this flag of England.

I generally had to give in.

Victory and disaster establish indestructible bonds between armies and their commanders.

The Allied Powers having proclaimed that the Emperor Napoleon is the sole obstacle to the re-establishment of peace in Europe, he, faithful to his oath, declares that he is ready to descend from the throne, to quit France, and even to relinquish life, for the good of his country.

Religions are all founded on miracles - on things we cannot understand, such as the Trinity. Jesus calls himself the Son of God, and yet is descended from David. I prefer the religion of Mahomet - it is less ridiculous than ours.

An army must have but one line of operations. This must be maintained with care and abandoned only for major reasons.

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

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.

It is the business of cavalry to follow up the victory, and to prevent the beaten army from rallying.

An army marches on its stomach.

The greatest general is he who makes the fewest mistakes.

What is a throne? - a bit of wood gilded and covered in velvet. I am the state- I alone am here the representative of the people. Even if I had done wrong you should not have reproached me in public - people wash their dirty linen at home. France has more need of me than I of France.

I may have had many projects, but I never was free to carry out any of them. It did me little good to be holding the helm; no matter how strong my hands, the sudden and numerous waves were stronger still, and I was wise enough to yield to them rather than resist them obstinately and make the ship founder. Thus I never was truly my own master but was always ruled by circumstances.

Ordinary men died, men of iron were taken prisoner: I only brought back with me men of bronze.

The bullet that will kill me is not yet cast.

An army of lions commanded by a deer will never be an army of lions.

Muhammad was a prince; he rallied his compatriots around him. In a few years, the Muslims conquered half of the world. They plucked more souls from false gods, knocked down more idols, razed more pagan temples in fifteen years than the followers of Moses and Jesus did in fifteen centuries. Muhammad was a great man. He would indeed have been a god, if the revolution that he had performed had not been prepared by the circumstances.

Without cavalry, battles are without result.

Give Me a Turkish Army. I will Conquer world.

The Mohammedan religion is the finest of all

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.

Cossacks are the best light troops among all that exist. If I had them in my army, I would go through all the world with them.