“Soldiers! Forty centuries behold you!”
“Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.”
“There is a joy in danger.”
“An army's effectiveness depends on its size, training, experience, and morale, and morale is worth more than any of the other factors combined.”
“I base my calculation on the expectation that luck will be against me.”
“I like honest men of all colors.”
“War is like government, a matter of tact.”
“A man made for public life and authority never takes account of personalities; he only takes account of things, of their weight and their conseqences.”
“A form of government that is not the result of a long sequence of shared experiences, efforts, and endeavors can never take root.”
“We must serve the people worthily, and not occupy ourselves in trying to please them. The best way, to gain their affections is to do them good.”
“Fashion condemns us to many follies, the greatest is to make oneself its slave.”
“War is not at all such a difficult art as people think. . . . In reality it would seem that he is vanquished who is afraid of his adversary and the the whole secret lies in that.”
“The only conquests that are permanent and leave no regrets are our conquests over ourselves.”
“The most difficult art is not in the choice of men, but in giving to the men chosen the highest service of which they are capable.”
“There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time.”
“Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederic. ... This is the only way to become a great general and master the secrets of the art of war.”
“Unity of command is essential to the economy of time. Warfare in the field was like a siege: by directing all one's force to a single point a breach might be made, and the equilibrium of opposition destroyed.”
“My generals are a parcel of post inspectors.”
“He who cannot look over a battlefield with a dry eye, causes the death of many men uselessly.”
“Between a battle lost and a battle won, the distance is immense and there stand empires.”
“I may be accused or rashness, but not sluggishness.”
“In war, as in politics, no evil - even if it is permissible under the rules - is excusable unless it is absolutely necessary. Everything beyond that is a crime.”
“The great art of governing consists in not letting men grow old in their jobs.”
“France has more need of me than I have need of France.”
“Impatience is a great obstacle to success; he who treats everything with brusqueness gathers nothing, or only immature fruit which will never ripen.”
