David Senra

May 11, 2023

The Mind of Napoleon

the mind of napoleon.jpeg

My top 10 highlights from the book:

Listen to the Founders episode on this book.

1. All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity; the less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything.

2. He knows that men have always been the same, that nothing can change their nature. It is from the past that he will draw his lessons in order to shape the present.

3. Destiny must be fulfilled. That is my chief doctrine.

4. The great majority of men attend to what is necessary only when they feel a need for it—the precise time when it is too late.

5. To have lived without glory, without leaving a trace of one's existence, is to have not lived at all.

6. The ancients had a great advantage over us in that their armies were not trailed by a second army of pen-pushers. (no work about work -- just work!)

7. Imagination rules the world.

8. I yield nothing.

9. Long before he played any political role he had discarded whatever "illusions" might have prevented him from playing it.

10. In war, men are nothing, one man is everything.

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I can't resist adding one more: 

11. The simplest moves are the best.

About David Senra

Learn from history's greatest founders. Every week I read a biography of an entrepreneur and tell you what I learned on Founders podcast