Quote
By Napoleon Bonaparte
…never to do what the enemy wishes you to do, for this reason alone, that he desires it.
- Source
- The Officer's Manual: Military Maxims of Napoleon (translated from the French by Colonel D'Aguilar), 1831 · Maxim XVI, p. 17
- Read at
- Richard Milliken and Son, Dublin (Internet Archive scan of the 1831 edition)
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About this quote
Maxim XVI in The Officer's Manual: Military Maxims of Napoleon, translated from the French by Colonel D'Aguilar (Dublin: Richard Milliken and Son, 1831). The collection gathers maxims drawn from Napoleon's military writings, so this is a translator's English, not Napoleon's own French. The sentence begins "It is an approved maxim in war," and goes on: "A field of battle, therefore, which he has previously studied and reconnoitred, should be avoided."