• Victory belongs to the most persevering.
• Adversity is the midwife of genius.
• Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.
• Men are more easily governed through their vices than their virtues.
• Circumstances? I make circumstances!
• To be defeated is pardonable, to be surprised--never!
• Men take only their needs into consideration, never their abilities.
• My motto has always been: a career open to all talents, without distinction of birth.
• Men are moved by only two levers: fear and self interest.
• Be successful! I judge men only by the results of their actions.
• I like honest men of all colors.
• I start out by believing the best but expecting the worst.
• It requires more courage to suffer than to die.
• The bullet that will kill me is not yet cast.
• I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest.
• Our hour is marked, and no one can claim a moment of life beyond what fate has predestined.
• The herd seek out the great, not for their sake, but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.
• Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
• The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.
• God has given me the will and the force to overcome all obstacles.
• If I had not been born Napoleon, I would have liked to have been born Alexander.
• Imagination rules the world.
• You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.
• Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
• The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one's designs to one's means.
• The stupid speak of the past, the wise of the present, and fools of the future.
• We must laugh at man to avoid crying for him.
• When you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna.
• What I did is immense. What I had decided to do, and what I had projected were still more so.
• The word 'impossible' is not in my dictionary.
• I wished to found a European system, a European Code of Laws, a European judiciary; there would be but one people in Europe.
• The French complain of everything, and always.
• He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.
• Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go.
• Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.
• A people which is able to say everything becomes able to do everything.
• Courage is like love; it must have hope to nourish it.
• I reign only through the fear I inspire.
• I should have conquered the world.