LIFE OF NAPOLEON



By Bourrienne





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A sect cannot be destroyed by cannon-
balls

Ability in making it be supposed that
he really possessed talent

Absurdity of interfering with trifles

Admired him more for what he had the
fortitude not to do

Always proposing what he knew could not
be honourably acceded to

An old man's blessing never yet harmed
any one

Animated by an unlucky zeal

Buried for the purpose of being dug up

Calumny such powerful charms

Cause of war between the United States
and England

Conquest can only be regarded as the
genius of destruction

Demand everything, that you may obtain
nothing

Die young, and I shall have some
consolatory reflection

Every time we go to war with them we
teach them how to beat us

Every one cannot be an atheist who
pleases

Go to England.  The English like
wrangling politicians

God in his mercy has chosen Napoleon to
be his representative on earth

Grew more angry as his anger was less
regarded

Had neither learned nor forgotten
anything

I have made sovereigns, but have not
wished to be one myself

I do not live--I merely exist

Ideologues

Immortality is the recollection one
leaves

Kings feel they are born general:
whatever else they cannot do

Kiss the feet of Popes provided their
hands are tied

Let women mind their knitting

Malice delights to blacken the
characters of prominent men

Manufacturers of phrases

More glorious to merit a sceptre than
to possess one

Most celebrated people lose on a close
view

Necessary to let men and things take
their course

Nothing is changed in France: there is
only one Frenchman more

Put some gold lace on the coats of my
virtuous republicans

Religion is useful to the Government

Rights of misfortune are always sacred

Something so seductive in popular
enthusiasm

Strike their imaginations by
absurdities than by rational ideas

Submit to events, that he might appear
to command them

Tendency to sell the skin of the bear
before killing him

That consolation which is always left
to the discontented

The boudoir was often stronger than the
cabinet

The wish and the reality were to him
one and the same thing

Those who are free from common
prejudices acquire others

To leave behind him no traces of his
existence

Treaties of peace no less disastrous
than the wars

Treaty, according to custom, was called
perpetual

Trifles honoured with too much
attention

Were made friends of lest they should
become enemies

When a man has so much money he cannot
have got it honestly

Would enact the more in proportion as
we yield

Yield to illusion when the truth was
not satisfactory


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These quotations were collected from the work of the Bourrienne by David Widger while preparing etexts for Project Gutenberg. Comments and suggestions will be most welcome.