Napoleon affords us an example of the danger of elevating one's self to the absolute, and sacrificing everything to the carrying out of an idea.
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One must change one's tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority.
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A leader is a dealer in hope.
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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 up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler would referee. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forgot this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and there freedoms.
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The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.
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He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.
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Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
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Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.
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A Constitution should be short and obscure.
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High culture is nothing but a child of that European perversion called history, the obsession we have with going forward, with considering the sequence of generations a relay race in which everyone surpasses his predecessor, only to be surpassed by his successor. Without this relay race called history there would be no European art and what characterizes it: a longing for originality, a longing for change. Robespierre, Napoleon, Beethoven, Stalin, Picasso, they're all runners in the relay race, they all belong to the same stadium.
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There is no class of people so hard to manage in a state, as those whose intentions are honest, but whose consciences are bewitched.
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The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.
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Ability is of little account without opportunity.
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Secrets travel fast in Paris.
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In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
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If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.
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Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.
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To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.
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Water, air, and cleanness are the chief articles in my pharmacy.
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The Bible is no mere book, but a Living Creature, with a power that conquers all that oppose it.
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History is a set of lies agreed upon.
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Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
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Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.
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In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.
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When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.
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Truth alone wounds.
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Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence
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A celebrated people lose dignity upon a closer view.
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The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.
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Ambition never is in a greater hurry that I; it merely keeps pace with circumstances and with my general way of thinking.
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