You can do anything with bayonets except sit on them.
I am a soldier and accustomed to risking my life every day. I am full of the fire of youth; I cannot act with the restraint of an accomplished diplomat.
To command, you must first of all speak to the eyes.
Even when I am gone, I shall remain in people’s minds the star of their rights, my name will be the war cry of their efforts, the motto of their hopes.
The bayonet has always been the weapon of the brave and the chief tool of victory.
Conscription is the vitality of a nation, the purification of its morality, and the real foundations of all its habits.
The object of war is victory, the object of victory is conquest, and the object of conquest is occupation.
Necessity dominates inclination, will, and right.
If you know a country’s geography, you can understand and predict its foreign policy.
Many a one commits a reprehensible action, who is at bottom an honourable man, because man seldom acts upon natural impulse, but from some secret passion of the moment which lies hidden and concealed within the narrowest folds of his heart.
The most terrible of all my battles was the one before Moscow. The French showed themselves to be worthy of victory, but the Russians showed themselves worthy of being invincible.
Whatever you ardently and passionately desire, that you obtain.
Large legislative bodies resolve themselves into coteries, and coteries into jealousies.
Lies circle the earth while Truth is still trying to put on its shoes.
Malice delights to blacken the characters of prominent men.
Brave deeds are the monuments of brave men.
It is a mistake, too, to say that the face is the mirror of the soul. The truth is, men are very hard to know, and yet, not to be deceived, we must judge them by their present actions, but for the present only.
In war one must lean on an obstacle in order to overcome it.
In politics nothing is immutable. Events carry within them an invincible power. The unwise destroy themselves in resistance. The skillful accept events, take strong hold of them and direct them.
It’s not the size of the army but the power within the army.