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| A faithful friend is a true image of the Deity. | 1 |
| A great reputation is a great noise; the more there is made, the farther off it is heard. | 2 |
| A trade of barbarians. On war. | 3 |
| A true man hates no one. | 4 |
| C’est l’imagination qui gouverne le genre humain—The human race is governed by its imagination. | 5 |
| Chance is the providence of adventurers. | 6 |
| Character is victory organised. | 7 |
| Circumstances? I make circumstances. | 8 |
| Death may expiate faults, but it does not repair them. | 9 |
| Do you wish to find out the really sublime? Repeat the Lord’s Prayer. | 10 |
| Du haut de ces pyramides quarante siécles nous contemplent—From the height of these pyramids forty centuries look down on us. To his troops in Egypt. | 11 |
| Du sublime au ridicule il n’y a qu’un pas—There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. | 12 |
| Everything unnatural is imperfect. | 13 |
| “From the height of these pyramids forty centuries look down on you.” To his troops in Egypt. | 14 |
| Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets. | 15 |
| Friendship is but a name. | 16 |
| Great ambition is the passion of a great character. He who is endowed with it may perform very good or very bad actions; all depends upon the principles which direct him. | 17 |
| Greatness is nothing unless it be lasting. | 18 |
| History is but a fable agreed on. | 19 |
| I made all my generals out of mud. | 20 |
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| Il ne faut pas nous fâcher des choses passées—We should not trouble ourselves (Sc. fash) about things that are past. | 21 |
| Imagination rules the world. | 22 |
| “Impossible” n’est pas français—“Impossible” is not French. | 23 |
| Incidents ought not to govern policy; but policy, incidents. | 24 |
| Independence, like honour, is a rocky island without a beach. | 25 |
| It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr. | 26 |
| “L’Europe m’ennuie”—“I am tired of Europe.” When he took the field against Russia. | 27 |
| La grande nation—The great nation. When General Bonaparte, of France. | 28 |
| Love is the occupation of an idle man, the amusement of a busy one, and the shipwreck of a sovereign. | 29 |
| Madness is the last stage of human debasement. It is the abdication of humanity. Better to die a thousand times! | 30 |
| Men are led by trifles. | 31 |
| Men are not so ungrateful as they are said to be. If they are often complained of, it generally happens that the benefactor claims more than he has given. | 32 |
| Merit, however inconsiderable, should be sought for and rewarded. | 33 |
| Music, of all the arts, has the greatest influence over the passions, and the legislator ought to give it the greatest encouragement. | 34 |
| Occupation is the scythe of Time. | 35 |
| Public instruction should be the first object of government. | 36 |
| Respect the burden. | 37 |
| Revolutions are like the most noxious dungheaps, which bring into life the noblest vegetables. | 38 |
| Secrets travel fast in Paris. | 39 |
| The conscience is the inviolable asylum of the liberty of man. | 40 |
| The contagion of crime is like that of the plague. | 41 |
| The future destiny of the child is always the work of the mother. | 42 |
| The greatest ornament of an illustrious life is modesty and humility, which go a great way in the character even of the most exalted princes. | 43 |
| The only victory over love is flight. | 44 |
| The worse the man, the better the soldier; if soldiers be not corrupt, they ought to be made so. | 45 |
| There are two levers for moving men—interest and fear. | 46 |
| There is no class of men so difficult to be managed in a state, as those whose intentions are honest, but whose consciences are bewitched. | 47 |
| Tout soldat français porte dans sa giberne le bâton de maréchal de France—Every private in the French army carries a field-marshal’s baton in his knapsack. | 48 |
| Tragedy warms the soul, elevates the heart, can and ought to create heroes. In this sense, perhaps, France owes a part of her great actions to Corneille. | 49 |
| True heroism consists in being superior to the ills of life, in whatever shape they may challenge him to combat. | 50 |
| Truth alone wounds. | 51 |
| Vengeance has no foresight. | 52 |
| Victory belongs to the most persevering. | 53 |
| Voilà le soleil d’Austerlitz—That is the sun of Austerlitz. | 54 |
| War—the trade of barbarians, and the art of bringing the greatest physical force to bear on a single point. | 55 |
| Water, air, and cleanliness are the chief articles in my pharmacopœia. | 56 |
| When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary. | 57 |
| When I want any good bead-work done, I always choose a man, if suitable otherwise, with a long nose. | 58 |
| When I was happy I thought I knew men, but it was fated that I should know them in misfortune only. | 59 |
| When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battlefield, they have all one rank in my eyes. | 60 |
| You may do anything with bayonets except sit on them. | 61 |
| You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy’s ranks. | 62 |
| You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war. | 63 |
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