“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.”

“Amy wondered if Bonaparte could declare war on Miss Gwen alone without breaking his peace with England”

“Historians are lenient to those who succeed and stern to those who fail; in this, and this alone, they display strong political sense.”

“The Constitution, the National Assembly, the dynastic parties, the blue and the red republicans, the heroes of Africa, the thunder from the platform, the sheet lightning of the daily press, the entire literature, the political names and the intellectual reputations, the civil law and penal code, the liberté, égalité, fraternité and the second of May 1852—all have vanished like a phantasmagoria before the spell of a man whom even his enemies do not make out to be a magician. Universal suffrage seems to have survived only for a moment, in order that with its own hand it may make its last will and testament before the eyes of all the world and declare in the name of the people itself: Everything that exists has this much worth, that it will perish.”

“When soldiers have been baptized in the fire of a battle-field, they have all one rank in my eyes.”

“One must change one's tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority.”

“Men take only their needs into consideration - never their abilities.”

“If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.”

“If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.”

“The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.”

“I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.”