“It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.”

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

War is the business of barbarians.

It is only by prudence, wisdom, and dexterity, that great ends are attained and obstacles overcome. Without these qualities nothing succeeds.

As a rule it is circumstances that make men.

There shall be no Alps.

Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.

Men are Moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.

If the art of war were nothing but the art of avoiding risks, glory would become the prey of mediocre minds, I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest.

Never tell your enemy he is doing the wrong thing.

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.

We frustrate many designs against us by pretending not to see them.

The reason most people fail instead of succeed is they trade what they want most for what they want at the moment.

Napoleon Bonaparte, on finding a dog beside the body of his dead master, licking his face and howling, on a moonlit field after a battle. Napoleon was haunted by this scene until his own death.

Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets

Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action comes, stop thinking and go in.

You love me so much, you want to put me in your pocket. And there I will die smothered.

Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.

I have spent all my life resisting the desire to end it.

April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.

She would have thought a woman would have died of shame. Instead of which, the shame died.

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.

Death is less bitter punishment than death’s delay.

But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions.