Bonaparte Quotes

• [To Bonaparte, when asked why she meddled in politics:] Sire, when women have their heads cut off, it is but just they should know the reason.

  Madame de Stael

  Cutting, Politics, Reason

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• I am less affected by their heroism who stood up for half an hour in the front line at Buena Vista, than by the steady and cheerful valor of the men who inhabit the snow-plow for their winter quarters; who have not merely the three-o'-clock-in-the-morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest, but whose courage does not go to rest so early, who go to sleep only when the storm sleeps or the sinews of their iron steed are frozen.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Morning, Sleep, Winter

  Henry David Thoreau (2004). “Walden: 150th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of the American Classic”, p.115, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Political scientists have often described Gaullism as a sort of Bonapartism. I myself have occasionally compared Sarkozy to Napoleon Bonaparte.

  Max Gallo

  Political, Scientist

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• Where everyman is participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year but everyday, he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his power be wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Heart, Government, Years

  Thomas Jefferson “Selected letters of Thomas Jefferson”, Lulu.com

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• We must evaluate the political sympathies of other states and the effect war may have on them. To assess these things in all their ramifications and diversity is plainly a colossal task. Rapid and correct appraisal of them clearly calls for the intuition of a genius; to master all this complex mass by sheer methodical examination is obviously impossible. Bonaparte was quite right when he said that Newton himself would quail before the algebraic problems it could pose.

  Carl von Clausewitz

  War, Diversity, Political

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• Bonaparte knew but one merit, and rewarded in one and the same way the good soldier, the good astronomer, the good poet, the good player.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Player, Soldier, Way

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2000). “Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.233, Modern Library

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• Was it possible that Napoleon should win the battle of Waterloo? We answer, No! Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blucher? No! Because of God! For Bonaparte to conquer at Waterloo was not the law of the nineteenth century. It was time that this vast man should fall. He had been impeached before the Infinite! He had vexed God! Waterloo was not a battle. It was the change of front of the Universe!

  Victor Hugo

  God, Fall, Winning

  "The Hamilton Speaker (The Battle of Waterloo)". Book edited by Oliver Ernesto Branch, 1878.

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• Our faith in democracy, personal freedoms and human 'rights', and the other comforting prescriptions of the humanist liberal credo stem from the supremacy of maritime over territorial power. Pragmatists may deplore this as crude determinism, as another vain attempt to construct a general theory of history. They should reflect on the sort of political philosophy and structures we might now adhere to had the Habsburgs, Bourbons, Bonaparte, Hitler, Stalin or his heirs prevailed in the titanic world struggles of the past four centuries.

  Peter Padfield

  Philosophy, Struggle, Past

  Peter Padfield (2000). “Maritime Supremacy & the Opening of the Western Mind: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World”, Overlook Books

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• We believe no more in Bonaparte's fighting merely for the liberties of the seas than in Great Britain's fighting for the liberties of mankind. The object is the same, to draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Believe, Fighting, Sea

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1808-1816”, p.241, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Suppose someone sits down where you are sitting right now and announces to me that he is Napoleon Bonaparte. The last thing I want to do with him is to get involved in a technical discussion of cavalry tactics at the Battle of Austerlitz. If I do that, I'm getting tacitly drawn into the game that he is Napoleon Bonaparte.

  Robert Solow

  Games, Battle, Want

  "Conversations With Economists: New Classical Economists and Opponents Speak Out on the Current Controversy in Macroeconomics". Book by Arjo Klamer, 1983.

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• What a benefit would the American government, not yet relieved of its extreme need, render to itself, and to every city, village and hamlet in the States, if it would tax whiskey and rum almost to the point of prohibition! Was it Bonaparte who said that he found vices very good patriots? "He got five millions from the love of brandy, and he should be glad to know which of the virtues would pay him as much." Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Army, Cities, Government

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald A. Bosco, Joel Myerson (2015). “Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.438, Harvard University Press

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• Linnæus, setting out for Lapland, surveys his "comb" and "spare shirt," "leathern breeches" and "gauze cap to keep off gnats," with as much complacency as Bonaparte a park of artillery for the Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the man is admirable.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Science, Men, Gnats

  Henry David Thoreau (2015). “Excursions and Poems : The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume V (of 20)”, p.98, HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

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• When Wellington thrashed Bonaparte,
  As every child can tell,
  The House of Peers, throughout the war,
  Did nothing in particular,
  And did it very well

  W. S. Gilbert

  Children, War, Government

  'Iolanthe' (1882) act 2

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• I think one of the few times I've been involved with real-life characters was the story of Marie Bonaparte. I think it's really difficult to become someone that really existed.

  Catherine Deneuve

  Real, Character, Thinking

  Interview with Geoff Andrew, www.theguardian.com. September 21, 2005.

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• I try to paint from life, but I had such a miserable experience with Bonaparte, who wouldn't sit still and kept mumbling about catching a cold and something incoherent about Wellington , so I finally decided to work from photos.

  Roman Genn

  Trying, Portraiture, Cold

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• There is not a power in Europe, no not even Bonaparte's that is so unlimited [as the British monarchy].

  Charles James Fox

  Europe, British Monarchy, Unlimited

  "Charles James Fox" by L. G. Mitchell, London: Penguin, (p. 194), 1997.

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• [Wise men] have tried to understand our state of being, by grasping at its stars, or its arts, or its economics. But, if there is an underlying oneness of all things, it does not matter where we begin, whether with stars, or laws of supply and demand, or frogs, or Napoleon Bonaparte. One measures a circle, beginning anywhere.

  Charles Fort

  Wise, Art, Stars

  Charles Fort (2014). “LO!”, p.5, Lulu.com

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• This soldier, I realized, must have had friends at home and in his regiment; yet he lay there deserted by all except his dog. I looked on, unmoved, at battles which decided the future of nations. Tearless, I had given orders which brought death to thousands. Yet here I was stirred, profoundly stirred, stirred to tears. And by what? By the grief of one dog. Napoleon Bonaparte, on finding a dog beside the body of his dead master, licking his face and howling, on a moonlit field after a battle. Napoleon was haunted by this scene until his own death.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Dog, Grief, Home

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• Youth is terrible: it is a stage trod by children in buskins and a variety of costumes mouthing speeches they've memorized and fanatically believe but only half understand. And history is terrible because it so often ends up a playground for the immature; a playground for the young Nero, a playground for the young Bonaparte, a playground for the easily roused mobs of children whose simulated passions and simplistic poses suddenly metamorphose into a catastrophically real reality.

  Milan Kundera

  Children, Real, Believe

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• The Princess Borghese, Bonaparte's sister, who was no saint, sat to Canova as a reclining Venus, and being asked if she did not feel a little uncomfortable, replied, "No. There was a fire in the room."

  William Hazlitt

  Princess, Fire, Saint

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• During a frustrating argument with a Roman Catholic cardinal, Napoleon Bonaparte supposedly burst out: “Your eminence, are you not aware that I have the power to destroy the Catholic Church?” The cardinal, the anecdote goes, responded ruefully: “Your majesty, we, the Catholic clergy, have done our best to destroy the church for the last 1,800 years. We have not succeeded, and neither will you.”

  Ross Douthat

  Years, Catholic, Church

  "A Time for Contrition". www.nytimes.com. March 28, 2010.

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• Anyone who clings to the historically untrue-and thoroughly immoral-doctrine that, 'violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedom.

  Robert A. Heinlein

  Thinking, Issues, Never Settle

  Robert A. Heinlein (1987). “Starship Troopers”, p.27, Penguin

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• I always thought I was Jeanne d'Arc and Bonaparte. How little one knows oneself.

  Charles de Gaulle

  Littles, Arcs, Knowing Oneself

  Quoted in Figaro Litteraire (1958)

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• The three-o'-clock in the morning courage, which Bonaparte thought was the rarest.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Courage, Morning, Three

  'Walden' (1854) 'Sounds'.

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• Trying to out-guess Bonaparte; the thought makes my blood run cold.

  Naomi Novik

  Running, Blood, Trying

  Naomi Novik (2009). “In His Majesty's Service: Three Novels of Temeraire (His Majesty's Service, Throne of Jade, and Black Powder War)”, p.190, Del Rey

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