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- Famous Quotes Throughout World History -
The French Revolution and Napoleon Era

Charles Alexandre de Calonne 1734 - 1802

"Madam, if a thing is possible, consider it done; the impossible? That will be done."

(Better known as the US Armed Forces' slogan: "The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a little longer.")

Maximilien Robespierre 1758 - 1794

April 24, 1793 - Declaration des droits de l'homme
"Any law which violates the inalienable rights of man is essentially unjust and tyrannical; it is not a law at all."

"Any institution which does not suppose the people good, and the magistrate corruptible, is evil."

Napoléon I 1769 - 1821

July 21, 1798 - Speech before the Battle of the Pyramids
"Think of it, soldiers; from the summit of these pyramids, forty centuries look down upon you."

November 16, 1803
"(The Channel) is a mere ditch, and will be crossed as soon as someone has the to attempt it."

1812 - Following the retreat from Moscow
"There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous."

December 1815
"As to moral courage. I have very rarely met with two o'clock in the morning courage: I mean instantaneous courage."

November 14, 1816
"An army marches on its stomach." (Attributed, but probably condensed from a long passage in E. A. de Las Cases Memorial de Ste-Helene of 1823.)

1822 - Napoleon in exile:
"England is a nation of shopkeepers."

"Not tonight, Josephine." (attributed, but probably apocryphal)

Pierre, Baron de Cambronne 1770 - 1842

"La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas." (The Guards die but do not surrender.)

- Attributed to Cambronne when called upon to surrender at Waterloo in 1815, but later denied by him.

Duke of Wellington 1769 - 1852

August 29, 1810
"As Lord Chesterfield said of the generals of his day, 'I only hope that when the enemy reads the list of their names, he trembles as I do.'"
(Usually quoted as: "I don't know what effect these men will have upon the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me.")

1815 - The Battle of Waterloo
"Up Guards and at them!" (later denied by Wellington)

"The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton." (Oral tradition)

"All the business of war, and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavor to find out what you don't know by what you do; that's what I called 'guessing what was at the other side of the hill.'"

"Next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a battle gained."

November 2, 1831
"I used to say of him (Napoleon) that his presence on the field made the difference of forty thousand men."

November 4, 1831
"Ours (our army) is composed of the scum of the earth - the mere scum of the earth."

On seeing the first Reformed Parliament:
"I never saw so many shocking bad hats in my life."

Replying to a blackmail threat:
"Publish and be damned." (attributed)

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- Famous Quotes Throughout World History -

| Index of Quotes by Speaker / Historical Period |
| The Great Quotes of Ancient Greece |
| Profound Quotes of Ancient Rome - BC |
| Quotes from the Roman Empire - AD |
| Famous Quotes from the Dark and Middle Ages |
| Relevant Quotes from the Reformation and Renaissance |
| Quotes from England: 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries |
| Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution Quotes | Voltaire |
| Quotes from the French Revolution and Napoleon Era |
| Modern European History Quotes from the 1800s |
| Quotes from Europe and Asia - 1900s | Winston Churchill |

Famous Quotes from American History
| Benjamin Franklin | Quotes from America in the 1700s |
| Thomas Jefferson | United States Quotes from the 1800s |
| Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War | Mark Twain |
| American Quotes from the Early 1900s and World War I |
| US 20th-Century and World War II Quotes |
| Famous American Pop Culture Quotes |