On freedom: "If one analyses it, political freedom is an accepted myth thought up by those governing to put the governed to sleep." Power is always concentrated at the top - different political systems and doctrines are merely different ways of hiding this fact.
On Equality: "Equality exists only in theory." No man-made political programs can reverse the innate inequality of nature: "Social law can give all men equal rights. Nature will never give them equal faculties."
For Napoleon, Monarchies are more efficient dispensers of justice than consent-
based Democracies: "In the system of absolute power only one voice is necessary to rectify an injustice; in the assembly system five hundred are necessary."
On being too precautious: "The torment of precaution is worse than the dangers it seeks to avoid: it is better to abandon yourself to destiny." The compulsive need to preempt and predict all problems is its own type of hell.
Organized force is only beaten by another organized force: "Conspirators who come together to overthrow a tyranny start by submitting to that of their leader." Successful democratic movements have the hierarchical structure of monarchies - though perhaps not their ossification.
On revolutions :"There are inevitable revolutions. They are moral eruptions, like the physical eruption of volcanoes. When the chemical combinations that produce the latter are complete, they explode, just like revolutions do when the moral combinations are in place."
The young v/s the old: "In politics, young people are worth more than old people." Politics requires not just numbers, but loyal soldiers and energetic executioners of different policy programs. A good ruler effectively channels the zest of the young people of his country.
On religion: "Man's disquiet is such that he absolutely needs the vagueness and mystery than religion provides him." Napoleon strikes an existential note here. Man doesn't live by bread alone. Without the orienting - if vague - myths of religion, human hearts feel restless.
People who rely too much on logical systems lose wars: "There are men who, because of their physical and moral constitution, tend to schematize everything: whatever their knowledge, intellect, or courage, nature has not brought them here to command an army."
On Revolution: "A revolution is an opinion which discovers bayonets." With brevity, Napoleon combines the two poles of revolution: the ideas that set it off, and the material might that carries it to fruition.
On reputation: "A great reputation is a great noise; the more you make, the more it spreads: laws, nations, monuments - everything crumbles, but the reputation remains." Napoleon was a man obsessed with leaving his mark on history - in this task, his success can't be overstated.
On the Bible: "Aristocracy is in the Old Testament, Democracy in the New Testament." In the Old Testament, Napoleon finds a metaphysical ethic in favor of hierarchy; in the New Testament, ideas favoring equality. Napoleon: Jesus Christ is the greatest republican.
On genius: "Misfortune is the midwife of genius." The education system wants to churn out smart and more capable humans - but perhaps no amount of training can pull out a person's best as well as a brush with tragedy.
Napoleon: "You only believe that which it pleases you to believe." Here, Napoleon gives us an early formulation of the confirmation bias - only experimentally validated in the 1960s. People interpret new information so that it fits their pre-existing worldviews.
Napoleon lived and fought through the French Revolution. He wrote: "The nobility would have survived if it had known how to master the writing desk." Public opinion ended nobility as much as violent force. It failed to convince the public that it served a valuable role.
On Democracy and Despotism: "Democratic governments border on anarchy, monarchy on despotism. Anarchy is powerless; despotism can do great things." Napoleon believed more in the madness of crowds, as supposed to their wisdom: "The people must be saved against their will."
Yet, mere despotic force isn't enough: "You can only lead a people by showing them a future; a leader trades in hope." Napoleon was well aware that "nothing has been founded merely by the sword." He understood that a leader must know how to inspire hope, not just fear.
On Courage: "Courage can't be counterfeited - it's a virtue which escapes hypocrisy." Courage with logical thought is unbeatable: "The burst of courage which, despite the suddenness of events, still leaves you capable of thought, of judgement and decision, is excessively rare."
Napoleon on his destiny: "A superior power pushes me towards a goal of which I know nothing; as long as it has not been attained I am invulnerable, unshakeable; as soon as I am no longer necessary for it, a single step will suffice to topple me."
On Superstitions: "Superstitions are the legacy left by one century's clever people to the fools of the future." Superstitions are mental shortcuts which are helpful when a detailed explanation would be too time-consuming. But superstitions ossify and become counter-productive.
Napoleon on how he planned wars: "There is no man more pusillanimous than I when I am planning a campaign." In the planning stage, Napoleon exaggerated, in his mind "all the dangers and calamities" possible. But while fighting, he forgot everything "except what lead to success."
Napoleon's relationship with power: "I too love power—but I love it as an artist. I love it as a musician loves his violin. I love it for the sake of drawing sounds, chords, and harmonies from it." Napoleon sought power not for the sake of control, but to create something new.
How to police: "The art of the police consists in punishing rarely and severely." Power should mostly be invisible from people's everyday lives: "Authority should make itself felt as little as possible and should not weigh on the people needlessly."
Those who abuse power ultimately taste their own medicine: "A sultan who cut off heads from caprice, would quickly lose his own in the same way. Excesses tend to check themselves by reason of their own violence. What the ocean gains in one place it loses in another."
On love: "The ivy clings to the first tree it meets. This, in a few words, is the story of love." The surprise and satisfaction of first love is hard to shake off. To love another person is to fall into their gravity - a lot depends on who we happen to meet first.
On Louis XVI, who was executed by guillotine in the French Revolution: "When Louis XVI was put on trial, he should have simply said that according to law his person was sacred, and left it at that. This would not have saved his life, but he would've died a king."
On the strange power of public opinion: "Public opinion is an invisible power, mysterious and irresistible. Nothing is more mobile, nothing vaguer, nothing stronger. No matter how capricious, it nonetheless is truthful, reasonable, and just, far more often than one would think."
A leader cannot fight the dominant ideas of his time: "Lead the ideas of your time and they will accompany and support you; fall behind them and they drag you along with them; oppose them and they will overwhelm you."
Napoleon on the permanence of aristocracies: “Among nations and in revolutions, aristocracy always exists. If you attempt to get rid of it by destroying the nobility, it immediately re-establishes itself among the rich and powerful families of the third estate. Destroy it there, and it survives and takes refuge among the leaders of workmen and of the people.” Instead of trying to erase aristocracies, an intelligent ruler gets ideological buy-in from them: “A prince gains nothing by this shifting of aristocracy. On the contrary he re-establishes stable conditions by permitting it to continue as it is, readjusting, however, the old order to the new principles.”
Napoleon on how intelligence has become the main tool in the tool kit of leaders: “Intelligence precedes force. Force itself is nothing without intelligence. In the heroic age the leader was the strongest man, with civilization he has become the most intelligent of the brave.” Or the bravest of the intelligent?
Source: Thoughts and Aphorisms by Napoleon (Compiled by Honoré de Balzac)
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