Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes

Princes should delegate to others the enactment of unpopular measures and keep in their own hands the means of winning favours.

What this White House really needs is a chief of staff who can read Machiavelli in the original Italian.

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.

I knew Saleh well, having interviewed and met with him several times. He was a professional Machiavelli, fluent in all forms for political maneuvering.

Politics is a dirty business, but if you do not do politics, politics will be done to you.

The liquor of statecraft is distilled from the mash you got.

The competent leader of men cares little for the niceties of other peoples' characters: he cares much--everything--for the exterior uses to which they may be put.... These are men to be moved. How should he move them? He supplies the power; others simply the materials on which that power operates.

A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from snares, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves.

If you are to rule men, you must rule them through their own ideas.

The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.

A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.

I'm not clever enough to be in machinations and real politics.

There are no techniques in politics.

You can't be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who's for you and who's against you.

People may have their opinions about Senator Helms, but he was highly effective and he took care of his constituency. I learned all those lessons from him, and I bring a great deal to the table because of that.

Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.

[In politics] You're either moving the ball on them or they're moving the ball on you. It's important to move the ball on them.

Sometimes in politics one must duel with skunks, but no one should be fool enough to let the skunks choose the weapons.

All politics is a combination of rhetoric and reality.

[Politics in America is:] A chess tournament disguised as a circus.

In order to govern you have to feed the news cycle

Politics is power, and communications is power,

The problem is Donald Trump was an outsider to politics. He really didn't have a team of seasoned political veterans around him who had worked together and knew how to work together and get something done.

Charlatanism of some degree is indispensable to effective leadership.

In politics things change, in politics timing is important, and in politics, how I move, I don't tell you.