A legislator must know how to take advantage of even the defects of those he wants to govern. The art consists in making others work rather than in wearing oneself out.
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.
But it is at home and not in public that one should wash ones dirty linen.
[Fr., Car c'est en famille, ce n'est pas en public, qu'un lave son linge sale.]
I closed the gulf of anarchy and brought order out of chaos. I rewarded merit regardless of birth or wealth, wherever I found it. I abolished feudalism and restored equality to all regardless of religion and before the law. I fought the decrepit monarchies of the Old Regime because the alternative was the destruction of all this. I purified the Revolution.
Die young, and I shall accept your death-but not if you have lived without glory, without being useful to your country, without leaving a trace of your existence: for that is not to have lived at all.